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When a company's profits grow but free cash flow declines, and management boldly claims that free cash flow will grow by double digits in the second half of the year, on what basis? If we only talk about the core business, Walmart's $WMT latest earnings report is quite good in terms of revenue and profit: Total revenue for Q2 reached $187.9 billion, up 5.9% year-over-year; adjusted operating profit increased 17.4% year-over-year, and adjusted earnings per share reached $0.81, up 19.1% year-over-year; The company also raised its full-year guidance for sales, operating profit, and earnings per share. However, I think the cash flow changes in this earnings report are worth discussing, and looking at them reveals they are hard to achieve. Here are two data points to consider: Walmart's free cash flow in the first half of the year dropped from $6.943 billion in the same period last year to $5.529 billion, a year-over-year decrease of 20.4%; Yet management still expects free cash flow for the full fiscal year to achieve double-digit growth. What does this mean? Many may not have a clear idea. In the last fiscal year, Walmart's $WMT full-year free cash flow was $14.923 billion. Even at the minimum threshold of "double-digit growth" of 10%, this fiscal year needs to reach at least $16.415 billion. Subtracting the $5.529 billion already generated in the first half, the second half needs at least $10.886 billion, while last year's second half free cash flow was about $7.980 billion. Look at the chart I made; the purple part clearly shows the comparison.