Investors are dumping stocks as they turn their focus to a world of problems now that the election is finished.

Stocks took a pounding Wednesday morning.

At midday, the Dow was down more than 300 points and on track for its worst decline in a year.

Don Jackson is a stocks expert with UBS Financial Services in Tulsa.

He says, “So far today is not the happiest days in the stock market.”

Some local investors believe the reason is that the attention is now shifted to the challenges facing the U.S. economy after the presidential election.

Republicans are worried about tax increases and spending.

Energy companies and banks took big losses.

Both industries presumably would have faced lighter regulation under the president’s Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Stocks seen as benefiting from President Barack Obama's decisive win rose.

They included hospitals, free of the threat that Romney would have rolled back Obama's health care law.

Jackson believes the cause of the dive in numbers on Wall Street may be because of something else.

The expert says the numbers show the decline could be from news early Wednesday morning about the recession in Europe.

He tells KRMG, “When I got up this morning about 4:30 a.m., U.S. stock market futures were actually positive. They weren’t widely positive, but they were positive. When they turned negative was when the president of the European Central Bank made some statements.”

Jackson says the cause may not be clear, but one thing is certain.

He advises investors to not react to quick and short ups and downs, but think about the market like a plan over several years.