US Financial Companies Continue to Increase Cash Holdings - Moody’s

According to Moody’s Investors Service, cash holdings of US technology companies continued to increase in 2016 despite lower borrowing.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The cash holdings of US technology companies continued to increase in 2016 despite lower borrowing, Moody’s Investors Service said in a press release on Tuesday.

"The concentration of cash among the most cash-rich US companies continued to grow last year, as did the proportion held by the technology sector, which accounted for close to half of the total," the release quoted Moody’s Senior Vice President Richard Lane as saying.

The top five most cash-rich companies were Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. and Oracle Corp, all technology firms.

Together the five companies held 32 percent of all US corporate cash totaling $594 billion.

Additionally, the technology sector generated 48 percent of total cash flow in 2016, which was about average for the past decade.

In total, US non-financial corporations generated a record $720 billion in cash in 2016, an 11 percent increase from the previous year.