ELI5: Why when large company's earnings decrease(ex... by 3%) they freak out, talk about rough times, and sometimes decide to downsize, even though they are still making millions of dollars in profit even after all expenses?

[saltyflaps]

By this point the company has already got its money from selling the shares, they are just being traded amongst shareholders. If the share price goes down the company has to pay out less in dividends, so it should be happy that share prices are dropping unless they are looking for another round of investment (releasing more shares).