Global markets tumble after Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton in poll

With less than one week to go until election day, a national poll showing Donald Trump with a narrow lead over Hillary Clinton sent global financial markets tumbling Wednesday, as both candidates focused on scrapping for votes in battleground states.

Major European stock markets opened lower in the wake of a dip Tuesday on Wall Street (down 0.7 per cent), followed by plunges in Tokyo (-1.76 per cent) and Hong Kong (-1.45 per cent) on fears that the maverick billionaire could win the White House.

“It’s been clear for some time now that markets would much prefer the stability that a Clinton victory would bring for the US economy and the reaction over the last 24 hours or so since the polls started to change so dramatically just confirms this,” Craig Erlam, a senior market analyst at OANDA, said in a note.

An ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll out Tuesday showed Mr Trump ahead 46 to 45 per cent, while other polls still put Ms Clinton in the lead but suggest the race has narrowed as November 8 looms. The 70-year-old real estate mogul boasted about the new numbers as he addressed a raucous crowd — chanting “Lock her up!” and “Drain the swamp!” — in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, before turning the knife. “The Clintons are the sordid past. And we will be the bright and clean future,” he declared.

Renewed FBI scrutiny of Clinton’s controversial use of a private email server as secretary of state has excited Republicans and underlined public doubts about the Democrat’s trustworthiness.