Wall Street set to slip amid election uncertainty

By Tanya Agrawal

REUTERS - Wall Street looked set to open lower on Wednesday as a tightening race for the White House prompted investors to seek safe-haven assets such as gold.

Investors are rethinking their long-held bets of a Nov. 8 victory for Democrat Hillary Clinton amid signs that 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.

"As the polls change, the market is growing more nervous and is beginning to price in a Trump presidency," said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital LLC in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

"While Clinton represents a status quo, there is little clarity on what kind of impact Trump's policies will have on trade and foreign policy."

Gold hit a near one-month high earlier in the day, suggesting investor anxiety over the election.

Wall Street closed lower on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 ending the day 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 a statement due at 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT).

While traders do not expect the central bank to raise interest rates just a week before 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.

S&P 500 e-minis were down 4.75 points, or 0.23 percent, with 226,638 contracts traded at 8:49 a.m. ET.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 5.25 points, or 0.11 percent, on volume of 32,883 contracts.

Dow e-minis were down 55 points, or 0.31 percent, with 35,764 contracts changing hands.

Crude oil prices fell for the fourth day after industry data showed a surprise build in U.S. stockpiles. Oil has lost 10 percent in the last two weeks. [O/R]

Data showed U.S. private employers added 147,000 jobs in October, falling short of expectations. Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 165,000 jobs.

Third-quarter earnings of S&P 500 companies are expected to rise by 3.2 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data, ending a year-long earnings recession.

Alibaba Group shares rose 3.7 percent to $104.99 in premarket trading after the Chinese e-commerce firm's second-quarter revenue beat estimates. Yahoo, which has a 15 percent stake in Alibaba, was up 2.6 percent.

Brocade Communications was up 8.5 percent at $12.20 after chipmaker Broadcom said it would buy the company for $5.5 billion. Broadcom was down 0.2 percent at $168.45.

Tableau Software fell 12.1 percent to $43.52 after the data analytics software maker reported lower-than-expected third-quarter revenue.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Anil D'Silva)