NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Cotton futures settled
marginally easier on Tuesday in mostly spread trade as the
market was content to stay in a narrow trading band, analysts
said.

The key December cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S.
slipped 0.18 cent to end at $1.0018 per lb, trading from 99.61
cents to $1.0082. The market has traded in a band from 98 cents
to $1.04 for 3-1/2 weeks.

Total volume traded Tuesday hit over 8,500 lots, more than
a third under the 30-day norm, preliminary Thomson Reuters data
showed.

Mike Stevens, an independent analyst in Mandeville,
Louisiana, said the market tried either end of the trading band
and did not generate any follow-through activity.

'It could not get above the high for the day or under the
low for the session so it wound up doing very little in the
end,' a dealer said.

Most of the trades in cotton were in the spread between key
December and the March cotton contract, traders said.

U.S. shares rose as it was buoyed by a jump in financial
shares on results from Bank of America and other big banks,
buckling a downturn in other markets that were hit by fears
over the global economy.

The trade will now be looking toward the U.S. Agriculture
Department's weekly export sales report on Thursday to gauge
the level of U.S. cotton export demand.

Open interest in cotton, usually taken as an indicator of
investor exposure in cotton, stood at 151,791 lots as of Oct
17, from 154,997 lots on Oct 14, the exchange said.

Total volume traded Monday in the cotton market reached
21,492 lots, against the prior tally of 11,905 lots, ICE
futures U.S. data showed.