New York (CNN Business) Corporate America's cash-hoarding ways may finally be ending. US nonfinancial companies were sitting on $1.69 trillion at the end of 2018, according to a Moody's Investors Service report released on Monday. While that's an epic amount of money, it's down by 15% from the record $1.99 trillion at the end of 2017. The decline — the first since Moody's began tracking the figures in 2007 — reflects a major shift driven by the 2017 tax overhaul , strong economic growth and mega share buybacks"With improved access to global cash following the tax overhaul, we expect aggregate cash balances will continue on a declining path," Richard Lane, a Moody's senior vice president, wrote in the report. Microsoft MSFT Alphabet GOOGL Amazon AMZN Facebook FB The top five cash-rich companies — Apple,and— drew down their war chests by a combined $111 billion, according to the report.

Source: CNN June 10, 2019 11:02 UTC