As polling stations closed across the US on Tuesday evening - and to a less-fervent extent before Election Day - like much of the rest of the world, the Finnish media has been closely following the Trump-Clinton race.
And as those ubiquitous red and blue Electoral College maps of the US began to turn redder and redder (red representing the Republican Party), it became clear the race was heading in Trump's favour.
While the print editions were bereft of election results, the websites of those papers were far from it. News flashes, updates and live streams came in - and continued to arrive - from the US at a breakneck pace throughout the night and Wednesday morning.
Global financial markets tank on Trump surge
As Trump's Electoral College numbers rose, Iltalehti reported about the reaction to the election in Asian financial markets.
Calling it the "Trump effect right now," Iltalehti - as well as Turun Sanomat, Helsingin Sanomat and others reported that the value of the Mexican peso had fallen hard and the euro was rising on Asian markets.
Also the global price of oil and the American stock market index S&P 500 were also headed downward, Iltalehti wrote, citing Reuters.
The paper also reported about a deadly shooting at a polling station in Azusa, California, which left one person dead and two critically injured.
Like many other Finnish online media outlets, Iltalehti also had a live video stream from the US Embassy in Helsinki, where diplomats, citizens and others had gathered to learn the results early Wednesday.
At at 8:17 am Helsinki time, the front page of Helsingin Sanomat's website read "Entire world surprised: Trump's road to victory - Summary of the US election right now," and featured a live video stream of results and analysis.
Effect on Finland's NATO plans
In a related story, Turun Sanomat reports that Finnish President Sauli Niinistö is headed to Brussels to meet with NATO leaders and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday.
The divisive debate about whether Finland should change its status from being a NATO partner to becoming a full-fledged member has been going on for some time.
But now that NATO-critical Donald Trump will be the next US Commander in Chief, the issue could take even longer to figure out.
During the campaign, Trump said that he would "certainly look at" taking the US out of the military alliance, calling it "obsolete" and too expensive for the US, according to Factcheck.org.
Trump has also, according to the paper, suggested that NATO's security guarantees for example, the Baltic countries would depend on their own defence investments.
Stoltenberg has tried to alleviate worries of eastern NATO countries that defence guarantees of the alliance are unconditional, the paper writes.
HS's analysis of US voters
Helsingin Sanomat's US correspondent Laura Saarikoski gave some insight into Trump's successes with voters.
She said that due to the widespread loss of blue collar jobs over the past few decades, particularly in manufacturing, the US middle class is suffering. She writes that for many citizens the American dream is dead, and Trump's campaign promises of returning manufacturing and coal mining jobs to communities appeared to attract votes.
The issue of illegal immigration from Mexico, Saarikoski says, was the second reason.
One of Trump's major campaign themes was that he would sort out the immigration problem by building a giant wall between the borders of the US and Mexico, and has also called for the deportation of more than 11 million illegal immigrants.
The third reason Saarikoski gives for Trump's success is the shrinking majority of white people in the United States. While the US has been known as a melting pot, she says, it has traditionally been mostly white. That is no longer the case, she says.
Trump tapped into that not by trying to appeal to non-white voters but to get traditionally non-voting white people back into voting booths with his message, she explains.
Nostalgia also plays a major part, Saarikosi says. Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again," which taps into a feeling of many voters - particularly older ones - that America was simply better in the past and believed that the reality show star and real estate mogul could do that.
Trump also tapped into America's fear of terrorism, the divides within the Republican Party and voters' longing for a strong leader, Saarikoski says.
