HARRISBURG, Pa. -- All eyes may have been on the historic presidential race. But while votes were coming in last night, the stock market was plummeting.
Joe Wirbick, a financial consultant and president of Sequinox, said as election night wore on, after-hours trading showed the market wasn't ready for a Donald Trump win. He said many people were worried the market was going to crash Wednesday morning, but that wasn't the case.
Wirbick said, "Stock markets like the norm. They don't like change. And Trump was all about change."
He said if Hillary Clinton had won the race, she represents the establishment, and that's what the stock market was expecting.
"He was all about shaking up the system, and there's an uncertainty there," he said.
The market did not factor in a Trump win though, as Dow futures, S&P futures, global stocks and bonds fell Tuesday night.
"In fact at one point we hit an almost 800 point loss, one of the biggest losses we had seen since the Great Depression, on after-hours trading which is different than actual trading during market hours," Wirbick said.
But the market didn't crash, and to the surprise of many, stocks shot back up shortly after Trump's victory speech.
Mark Price, a labor economist, said the drop is normal during major elections because of the uncertainty that comes with a new president.
Price said, "You're probably seeing a little more volatility here because it was again a much more unexpected event maybe than in previous elections. But it's certainly the case that you will see big movements in markets around election time. And it just reflects people trying to make money off of information."
But experts said there is no need to panic in the long term.
Price said, "It doesn't mean that anything has changed in the overall economy. It's just financial markets moving up and down. It's a little scary - especially if you have a retirement plan in them. But in the long run things will work out fine."
Wirbick advises that investors put portfolios together in a way that major stock market fluctuations don't affect them.