Clinton, Trump Begin Final Pitch For American Votes

WASHINGTON,, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 02nd Nov, 2016 ) - Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump sprinted from swing state to swing state in a fight for the last few unclaimed votes Wednesday, six days out from an election that has set the world on edge.

Clinton is ahead in most polls, but a last-minute surge by the 70-year-old Trump has delighted US foes, nauseated allies and winded global financial markets. In less than a week Americans will chose between a populist Republican who shattered political norms and a scandal-tormented Democrat vying to be America's first female president.

The choice has left many US voters cold and made the outcome difficult to predict. One ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll on Tuesday even gave Trump a narrow lead. The real estate mogul has been hit by scandal after scandal, accused of sexual assault, not paying taxes and having ties to Russia's Vladimir Putin and the mob.

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

"Investors are jittery," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer for the BMO Bank, "market volatility has spiked." Trump's pledge to scrap the North America Free Trade Agreement and build a wall on the southern border has made the Mexican peso a barometer for the market's unease.

The unit has weakened against the Dollar by almost four percent in the last week alone. Meanwhile stocks from New York to Tokyo swooned, wiping billions off investments and pensions. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- whose regime survives by painting America as a comic-book foe -- crowed that the "catastrophic reality" of the two candidates "goes beyond what even we were saying." In Britain, a giant effigy of Trump wielding the head of his rival Clinton was to be burned during traditional bonfire celebrations.