While it's true that dividends immediately impact market price by making it lower, the market also prices in the expectation of future dividends by inflating the price.
If GE stopped paying dividends altogether, for example, the market price would tank.
While this is fairly standard corporate finance framing, I don't think it's necessarily as true as it once was. If GE were to stop paying dividends and announce they were going to do buybacks funded by cheap debt, I doubt the market would more than shrug.
It is different, but otherwise GE would just what, pile up the money? Cancelling dividends is only a drag on a stock if it's a sign that they can't afford to pay them regularly. In a hypothetical scenario where GE decided 20 years ago to stop paying dividends (to enable a better apples:apples comparison of stock price over time), they would have been just as profitable for that time period but today their balance sheet would have a ton more cash. I'm just calling into doubt whether that would have negatively impacted their share price or outlook at all.
It's all academic anyway, I think we're saying the same thing.
If GE stopped paying dividends altogether, for example, the market price would tank.