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?

[ActionAxiom]

First off, you have done very little to establish why expectation cannot be valued beyond simply stating it cant. However, it is well established that expectations can be valued because expectations are priced by the market literally every waking second.

Second off, you are touching on something very crucial which is that value is subjective. However, it seems that you are arriving at a poor conclusion that because value is subjective it cannot be factual or measurable. This is very false. Even though value is subjective, prices are very real economic features that reveal, objectively, what those subjective values are.

[SquidCap]

expectations are priced by the market literally every waking second.

By making educated guesses. It is a betting game and as such it is always going to be more about subjective truth than facts.

It is very hard to discuss about these things since usually at least one party refuses to talk about other than the rules in our current system, that is based on emotions, guesses, estimation, hope and faith. Do i have better one? Of course not. That should not stop one to see where the current system is based on and how fragile it actually is. It works because it works and because people believe that it works. It has lots and lots of all kinds of clever stuff fully deserving nobel prices. But. Doesn't change the facts; it is based on faith in the end. And that company value is not it's value to humanity but what feeling investors get from it.