(Updates prices, adds comments)
* Mexican peso gains about 2 pct at one point
* Canadian dollar firmer, edges away from 6-month low
* Mexican peso, Loonie stay firm after Clinton-Trump debate
* Sterling takes breather after Friday's "flash crash"
By Masayuki Kitano
SINGAPORE, Oct 10 (Reuters) - The Mexican peso surged on Monday as markets trimmed the chance of a victory by Republican nominee Donald Trump in his U.S. presidential bid after his campaign was rocked by crisis following revelations he had mad vulgar comments about women.
The Mexican peso MXN=D2 rose about 2 percent to 18.91 to the U.S. dollar at one point in early Asian trade - its highest level in nearly a month- and held on to the bulk of its gains after the conclusion of a second presidential debate between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. peso pared some gains and last stood at 19.06, still up more than 1 percent on the day.
There seems to be some unwinding of the so-called "Trump trade" in which traders put on bearish bets on the Mexican peso against the safe haven yen, said a trader for a Japanese bank.
"Selling the Mexican peso versus the yen and the Canadian dollar against the yen had both been pretty popular a short while back," the trader said.
Against the yen, the Mexican peso rose 1.1 percent to 5.3910 MXNJPY=R .
Trump has vowed he would build a wall on the border with Mexico and renegotiate or scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if he is elected.
The Mexican peso hit a record low against the dollar in September, on concerns that a Trump victory would threaten Mexico's exports to the United States, its single biggest market.
The peso is unlikely to break above the trading ranges seen since June, even if more position squaring takes place, said Wu Mingze, FX trader of global payments for financial services provider INTL FCStone in Singapore.
"A full-unwinding of the 'Trump Trades' should only bring us to the levels between 18.00-19.00 consolidation zone," he said.
In a video released on Friday, Trump is heard talking on an open microphone in 2005 about groping females and trying to seduce a married woman.
The controversy pitched Trump into the biggest crisis of his 16-month-old campaign and deepened fissures between him and establishment Republicans. Canadian dollar rose around 0.3 percent to C$1.3254 to the U.S. dollar, edging away from a low of C$1.3315 set on Friday its lowest level since mid-March.
Sterling slipped 0.2 percent to $1.2406 GBP=D4 , taking a breather in the wake of its "flash crash" in Asian trade on Friday, when it suddenly plunged to a 31-year low of $1.1491.
Although sterling later came off that low, it still slid 4.2 percent last week in its worst weekly performance since the week of the UK Brexit vote in late June. Those losses came amid worries that Britain would opt for a "hard" exit from the European Union, in which control over migration into Britain would be favoured over trade access to the EU.
The dollar nursed losses suffered on Friday after U.S. nonfarm payrolls data for September came in below expectations.
Against a basket of six major currencies, the dollar last traded at 96.531 .DXY , having retreated from Friday's two-month high of 97.188.
The dollar held steady at 102.85 yen JPY= after tumbling 1 percent on Friday and remained below a one-month high of 104.17 yen set on Thursday.
Still, while the headline number for U.S. nonfarm payrolls in September was softer than the market forecast, it was still seen as being strong enough to keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise rates in December.