Berkshire Hathaway, CITIC and Daiwa Securities - the companies with the most cash in the world

The cash that companies hold is important for paying employees, financing operations and as a measure of their financial health, shows a visualcapitalist.com analysis that presents the ranking of the top 50 companies in the world with the largest cash and short-term securities holdings, according to TradingView data.

According to the cited source, Berkshire Hathaway, the American conglomerate of Warren Buffet, which owns numerous subsidiaries in areas such as insurance, construction, furniture and transportation, leads the ranking with an impressive amount of $382 billion. Berkshire is followed by CITIC, a Chinese state-backed financial conglomerate, and Daiwa Securities Group, one of Japan's largest financial brokerages. Big Tech rounds out the top five, with Alphabet holding $127 billion and Amazon $126 billion.

The following companies are ranked 6th to 15th: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing ($97.8 billion), Interactive Brokers Group ($93.4 billion), Microsoft ($89.5 billion), Charles Schwab ($88.9 billion), Meta Platforms ($82.4 billion), Volkswagen ($76.9 billion), PDD Holdings ($69.5 billion), Apple ($66.9 billion), Nvidia ($60.6 billion) and Tencent ($59.2 billion).

• Why Buffett Has So Much Cash

Of the 50 companies on the list, the financial sector has the largest cash reserves, at $1.2 trillion - partly due to strict capital norms that require banks to have large cash reserves.

After 12 straight quarters of net stock sales, Buffett and his team have placed much of the company's cash in short-term U.S. Treasuries, making stock valuations look expensive.

My source says Oracle's cash and cash equivalents, as a percentage of total assets, are at a

• Why Big Tech Companies Have Huge Cash Reserves

The Magnificent Seven - Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia and Tesla - collectively hold $597 billion - enough to buy most of the companies in the S&P 500, visualcapitalist.com notes.

Traditionally, Big Tech companies are cash machines: high gross margins and scalable cost structures mean their revenues quickly turn into cash.

While they have spent considerable sums to build AI factories, they have used little of their cash reserves for financing, opting instead for debt.

The companies mentioned have large cash reserves both to finance acquisitions and to protect themselves against potential economic turbulence, such as threats from tariffs or geopolitical conflicts.