(Adds Wall Street open, updates prices)
* Trump gaining on Clinton as campaign enters final week
* European stocks down for 7th straight day
* China, India manufacturing data beats, lifts EM stocks
* Italian bond yields rise, eyes on Dec 4 referendum
By Vikram Subhedar
LONDON, Nov 1 (Reuters) - The dollar dipped, demand for gold and the Swiss franc picked up and stocks were on the back foot on Tuesday as investors sought safe havens amid mounting uncertainty about how next week's U.S. presidential election will pan out.
European shares were poised to fall for a seventh straight session while robust manufacturing data from China and India underpinned gains in emerging market stocks, further stoking inflation expectations that have driven a selloff in bonds in recent weeks.
Stocks futures on Wall Street ESc1 pointed to small gains and were up 0.2 percent.
But futures on the VIX VXc1 gauge of expected market volatility on the S&P500 rose to its highest in about a month, as did gold XAU= , reflecting concerns over the election as a fractious campaign entered its final week.
"We've seen that (Hillary) Clinton has lost some of the headstart she had on Trump," Capital Economics analyst Simona Gambarini said.
"A very small possibility of Trump winning the election is priced into gold, so if he actually won, we could see quite a big jump."
Democratic Clinton held a five-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday, down only slightly since the FBI said last week it was reviewing new emails in its investigation of Clinton ahead of the Nov. 8 election. a poll by ABC News showed Trump leading by one point and the Los Angeles Time put the Republican candidate more than two points ahead.
In Europe, forecast-beating results from oil major Royal Dutch Shell RDSa.L initially provided a boost to the STOXX 600 .STOXX index, but those gains proved short-lived with weakness in banks .SX7P dragging the index 0.1 percent lower.
Standard Chartered shares STAN.L fell more than 5 percent after underwhelming results.
Trading volumes were light across major European exchanges.
The dollar fell against a basket of currencies with its index .DXY off 0.4 percent.
'IN LIMBO'
In a busy week for central banks, the Bank of Japan and Reserve Bank of Australia held policy steady as expected, with the latter quashing any expectations of a near-term rate cut. The Aussie dollar AUD= rose 1 percent.
The BoJ also held off on expanding stimulus on Tuesday but once again pushed back the timing for hitting its inflation target. The dollar hovered around 104.80 yen. in limbo, unfortunately, ahead of the U.S. election," said Bart Wakabayashi, head of Hong Kong FX sales at State Street Global Markets.
Markets see only a small chance that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise rates when it concludes its meeting on Wednesday, but traders will be scouring its statement for clues on the timing of its next rate hike.
Chances of a hike in December were at around 78 percent, according to the CME Group's FedWatch Tool.
In bond markets, Italy's borrowing costs hit two-year highs with investors wary of political risks and banking sector reforms continuing to run into hurdles.
Other euro zone bond yields also rose between 3-4 basis points on the day, with Ireland's 10-year yield hitting its highest level since June, rising 4 bps to 0.69 percent IE10YT=TWEB .
Concern about Italy centers on a referendum on Dec. 4 in which voters will decide whether to approve Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's programme of constitutional reforms to reduce the role of the Senate and the powers of regional governments.
Polls suggest Renzi may lose, "and that would be very bad news," said DZ Bank strategist Daniel Lenz.
"Since Portugal passed the DBRS ratings test and Spain now has a minority government, Italy is where the risks lie," he said.
The ramp-up in yields has been a central theme across markets over the past month, spurring turbulence in debt markets and sending global investors out of bonds and into cash on fears that a multi-decade bond bull run was coming to an end. commodity markets, oil prices rose from one-month lows after OPEC agreed on a long-term strategy that was seen as an indication the cartel was reaching a consensus on managing production. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 were up 0.1 percent at $46.92.