> When a company sits on so much cash, I guess it doesn't mean cash which is liquid, but rather a variety of assets, right?
Cash is a very specific thing on a balance sheet. It has to be cash or very close to cash. "Equivalent", something like a <90d treasury that has virtually zero interest rate risk.
So when someone says "Google has 100B cash" it would mean literally cash or close enough to cash that it doesn't matter.
You'll note, if you read the 10Q, it's also wrong. Google has 30B in cash and cash equivalents, and an additional 90B in marketable securities - stocks, and bonds with >90d maturity.
That said, "marketable securities" are extremely liquid.
> Or is it actually possible to have 1.5 billion dollars laying around in cash somehow?
Yes? Depending on what you mean by "laying around in cash". It's not literal physical dollar bills, it's numbers in a computer.
1.5B is not much for a company that size. I'd image that is payroll and accounts payable for like a week or two?
> I know money is a made up idea, but that is still a big number for a bank/banks/asset holding company to just say good for and expect some kind of real monetary tangible value behind the symbolic currency.
Bank of America alone has like 2 trillion in US deposits.
Cash is a very specific thing on a balance sheet. It has to be cash or very close to cash. "Equivalent", something like a <90d treasury that has virtually zero interest rate risk.
So when someone says "Google has 100B cash" it would mean literally cash or close enough to cash that it doesn't matter.
You'll note, if you read the 10Q, it's also wrong. Google has 30B in cash and cash equivalents, and an additional 90B in marketable securities - stocks, and bonds with >90d maturity.
That said, "marketable securities" are extremely liquid.
> Or is it actually possible to have 1.5 billion dollars laying around in cash somehow?
Yes? Depending on what you mean by "laying around in cash". It's not literal physical dollar bills, it's numbers in a computer.
1.5B is not much for a company that size. I'd image that is payroll and accounts payable for like a week or two?
> I know money is a made up idea, but that is still a big number for a bank/banks/asset holding company to just say good for and expect some kind of real monetary tangible value behind the symbolic currency.
Bank of America alone has like 2 trillion in US deposits.