Tokyo Stocks Plunge 2.2% As Results Show Tight US Election

TOKYO, Nov 9, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 09th Nov, 2016 ) - Tokyo stocks plunged Wednesday as polls suggested that market-favoured Hillary Clinton was struggling in her bitter battle against Donald Trump for the US presidency.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index dropped 2.2 percent, or 382.48 points, to 16,788.90 by the lunch break, after swinging between gains and losses for most of the morning as early election results trickled in.

The broader Topix index of all first-section shares dived 2.26 percent, or 30.85 points, to 1,332.64. The latest results showed the rivals were locked in a dead heat in key battlegrounds, after markets had largely been betting on Clinton, who is widely seen as a safer pair of hands by markets.

A deeply divided electorate of about 200 million Americans were asked to make a momentous choice between electing the nation's first woman president, or handing the reins of power to a billionaire populist who has upended US politics with his improbable outsider campaign.

With voting over in most eastern states and Americans still lining up to cast their ballots on the West Coast, television networks called 16 states so far for the Republican Trump -- a band of red on the electoral map stretching from South Carolina to Texas.