Overall U.S. banks' cash assets were $3.26 trillion as of Aug. 23, up 5.4% from the end of 2022. The SVB failure triggered a sudden dash for cash at banks, which within two weeks had bulked up cash assets to $3.49 trillion, the highest level since April 2022. It has $420 billion in cash and $990 billionof what it calls high quality liquidity assets and other unencumbered securities, it said. "The good news is for some of these banks re-investing cash is that we have pretty high short-term rates," said Mac Sykes, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds. "It's definitely opportunistic and advantageous to be investing short-term securities."

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Persons: Carlo Allegri, David Fanger, Moody's, Brendan Browne, Manan Gosalia, Morgan Stanley, Peter Marshall, Mac Sykes, Saeed Azhar, Ann Saphir, Niket, Megan Davies, Nick Zieminski, Richard Chang Organizations: Bank of America, REUTERS, FRANCISCO, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, Federal, Graphics, Reuters, JPMorgan, Federal Reserve, Regulators, FDIC, Gabelli, Thomson Locations: Manhattan, New York City , New York, U.S, Silicon