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Hillary Clinton's lead over Donald Trump weakens as momentum shifts in key election battlegrounds

Hillary Clinton’s grip on the US presidential election has weakened with less than a week left on the clock, as new polls show the race between the Democrat and Donald Trump going down to the wire in several key swing states. While the former Secretary of State remains the favourite to win the White House on 8 November, a contest that appeared days ago to be all but over has become a nail-biter once more.

Since last Friday, when FBI Director James Comey announced the discovery of more emails potentially pertinent to the bureau’s investigation of Ms Clinton’s private server, her prospective electoral college lead has plummeted, according to poll averages taken by RealClearPolitics.

A week ago, the aggregator put Ms Clinton more than 100 college votes ahead of Mr Trump, with 333 to the Republican’s 205 on a map where states were counted according to their more likely electoral outcome. Today, the same average of polls gave Ms Clinton just 273 votes, eight ahead of her rival’s 265, and barely more than the 270 needed to claim victory.

A series of new state polls released on Wednesday by CNN/ORC in Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania and Arizona also showed slimming margins between the two candidates, with Mr Trump taking the lead in Nevada by 49 to 43 per cent. In mid-October, the same poll had Ms Clinton ahead by two points. In Florida, the CNN poll gave the Democrat a two-point lead, 49 to 47 per cent – an increase of 1 per cent on the previous poll. but well within the margin of error.

December Fed Hike Odds Approach 80% as Traders Pivot to Payrolls

The 78 percent probability traders are assigning to a rate hike is up from 68 percent on Tuesday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, as policy makers noted growing confidence that inflation is on track to reach their 2 percent target. The probabilities are based on the assumption the effective fed funds rate will trade at the middle of the new range after the central bank’s next hike.

Investors now turn their attention to the Nov. 4 release of the Labor Department’s October jobs report for the next clue to the path of monetary policy.

The U.S. Stock Market Isn’t Going Clinton’s Way

Few institutions have a better track record calling presidential races than the U.S. stock market. At the moment, it’s sending information that counts against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The performance of the S&P 500 Index has signaled the outcome of every presidential election since 1984, according to an analysis by Strategas Research Partners LLC. A gain in the benchmark for American equity in the three months prior to the vote has seen the incumbent party win 86 percent of the time since 1928. Right now, the benchmark gauge is down 3.6 percent since Aug. 8 with just a week until the vote, a fact that in isolation augurs well for Donald Trump.

Aside from the three-month interval, the S&P 500 fell Tuesday by the most in three weeks, slipping for a sixth day to 2,111.72, making its first foray below 2,100 since July 7 before rebounding. The gauge is in its longest slide since August 2015 amid polls showing the race for the White House is tightening. The CBOE Volatility Index surged Tuesday by 9 percent to the highest since June 27.

Oil prices rise on Nigeria pipeline attack, weaker dollar

Crude oil futures rose on Thursday as an attack on a Nigerian oil pipeline and a weaker U.S. dollar buoyed sentiment in the market, lifting prices from five-week lows.

Brent crude was trading up 51 cents, or 1.1 percent, at $47.37 a barrel by 0415 GMT (12:15 a.m. ET). U.S. crude was up 39 cents, or 0.9percent, at $45.73 per barrel.

Crude prices were underpinned by concerns about supply disruptions after militants in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta oil hub attacked a pipeline operated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Wednesday.

Reference: Independent,Bloomberg,Reuters