Investors were beginning to rethink their long-held bets of a
Nov. 8 victory for Democrat Hillary Clinton amid signs her
Republican rival Donald Trump could be closing the gap.
While Clinton held a 5 percentage point lead over Trump,
according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday,
some other polls showed her Republican rival ahead by 1-2
percentage points.
Safe haven assets like gold <XAU=> hit a near one-month high as
investors grew more concerned about the global economic outlook.
Wall Street closed lower on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 closing at
the lowest level since July 7. The index had breached a key
technical level earlier in the session.
The selloff in equities comes as the Fed holds its two-day
policy meeting, with its statement due at 2 p.m. ET. While
traders do not expect the central bank to raise interest rates
just a week ahead of the election, they are looking for clues
that the Fed is set to hike rates in December.
Traders are pricing in a 73.6 percent chance of a December hike,
according to CME Group's FedWatch tool.
Crude oil prices fell for the fourth day after industry data
showed a surprise build in U.S. stockpile. Oil has lost 10
percent in the last two weeks. [O/R]
The ADP national employment report is expected to show a gain of
165,000 jobs in October. The data is due at 8:15 a.m. ET.
Third-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to
grow by 3.2 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data,
ending a year-long earnings recession.
Square <SQ.N>, the mobile payments company co-founded and run by
Twitter <TWTR.N> CEO Jack Dorsey, rose 5.7 percent to $11.70 in
premarket trading after the company raised its full-year revenue
forecast.
Electronic Arts was up 5.4 percent at $82.02 after the
videogame publisher raised its full-year revenue and profit
forecasts.
Tableau Software fell 7.2 percent to $45.97 after the data
analytics software maker reported lower-than-expected
third-quarter revenue.
Futures snapshot at 7:27 a.m. EDT:
S&P 500 e-minis were down 0.5 points, or 0.02 percent, with
172,637 contracts traded.
Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 1 points, or 0.02 percent, on
volume of 25,901 contracts.
Dow e-minis were down 20 points, or 0.11 percent, with
30,071 contracts changing hands.
(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
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