Marketable securities are investments a company holds that can be sold quickly for cash. They sit on the balance sheet as current assets — Treasury bills, commercial paper, publicly traded stocks, and money market funds. Companies park excess cash in marketable securities to earn returns while maintaining liquidity.
Apple holds over $160 billion in marketable securities — more than the GDP of most countries. Microsoft holds $100+ billion. Google parent Alphabet holds $110+ billion. These tech giants generate so much cash that they cannot reinvest it all productively, so they park billions in safe, liquid securities.
On financial statements, marketable securities are classified as: held-to-maturity (carried at cost), available-for-sale (carried at fair value, gains in equity), or trading securities (carried at fair value, gains in income). Silicon Valley Bank collapse in 2023 was partly caused by unrealized losses on its available-for-sale bond portfolio — a reminder that even safe marketable securities carry interest rate risk.