Its all about the debt they carry. Or return they are getting on other long term assets. For instance, the banks are in trouble for multiple reasons but investing in long term bonds at 3% and then having the FEDs jack rates up to 7% - that wasn't good for their bottom line. Also fixed mortgages at 3.25% - they are losing money on those now. Might be one of the reasons Wells Fargo said they were exiting the Mortgage business a few months ago. A year ago, carrying debt was smart and all the big companies did it (why not at 1 or 2%). That is cheap and allows them to use cash for more productive purposes. From Google:

How Much Debt Does Apple Carry? The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that Apple had debt of US$111.1b at the end of December 2022, a reduction from US$122.8b over a year.