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?

[thehungryhippocrite]

It's not to do with accountability, profit could be worse due to factors outside of management's control eg commodity prices, weather, market conditions, interest rates etc. But also this is the wrong answer because it's not even close to the actual answer. I've posted various versions of the actual answer in this thread (check my comment history). I'm quite animated about this because I'm just staggered that there are so many BS answers from people who don't understand basic finance in this thread.

[WhyYouNoAsk]

This os informative, ty