NEW YORK — Two years after credit markets seized up and caused the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, companies are hoarding the most cash in at least a decade.

"Every action we take or contemplate taking is measured by its impact on our balance sheet and liquidity," said Mark Jacobs, the chief executive officer of Houston-based RRI Energy Inc. The company sold its Texas retail electricity business and the Reliant brand name in May, helping triple cash and equivalents from a year earlier to 18 percent of assets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Even as government reports show that the first global recession since World War II may be easing, corporate treasurers are raising cash as fast as they can, wary of losing access to capital. Corporate credit defaults reached 10.7 percent worldwide in July, the highest since 1991, according to Moody's Investors Service. Credit markets that started to freeze in August 2007 have now triggered about $1.6 trillion in writedowns and losses at the world's biggest financial institutions.

Cash and short-term investments accounted for about $1.98 trillion, or 8.2 percent, of assets at the end of the second quarter for companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, up from about $1.6 trillion, or 6.4 percent, a year earlier, Bloomberg data show. Cash reached a record $2 trillion in the first quarter, 8.3 percent of assets.

"Cash is king," said Paul Kasriel, the chief economist at Northern Trust Corp. in Chicago. "Businesses are in survival mode right now."

While companies this year had sold a record $838.7 billion of bonds and raised $109.9 billion in stock offerings as of the end of last week, the increase in cash shows they are following the lead of consumers, who pushed the U.S. savings rate to a 14-year high of 6.2 percent in May.

"There's going to be a generational psychology shift as to how you and I and the rest of the world think about finance," said Jonathan Fine, a managing director on the investment-grade syndicate desk at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York. "People will keep cash on hand so long as what happened in the last two years remains so visible in the rearview mirror."

General Electric Co., the world's biggest maker of power-plant turbines, increased cash and short-term investments at the fastest pace in 14 years in the second quarter, to $97.5 billion, or 12.5 percent of assets, from $64.9 billion, or 7.7 percent, a year earlier, Bloomberg data show.

As of the end of last week, the Fairfield, Conn.-based company had raised about $49 billion this year with unsecured and government-guaranteed debt through its GE Capital Corp. finance arm. CEO Jeffrey Immelt began boosting cash after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September.

"We've done a lot of stress testing in terms of making sure we've got sufficient liquidity, sufficient cash," said Kathryn Cassidy, GE's treasurer.

That wasn't the thinking until defaults on subprime mortgages made to consumers with poor credit began accelerating in 2007, causing losses on securities backed by the loans. Concern that the contagion would spread led investors to rein in credit.

The asset-backed commercial paper market contracted about 20 percent in five weeks from its peak in August 2007. Paris-based BNP Paribas SA said it halted withdrawals from three investment funds on Aug. 9 because France's largest bank couldn't "fairly" value their holdings. High-yield, high-risk companies such as Plainview, N.Y.-based Aeroflex Inc., a maker of testing gear for the aerospace and defense industries, were forced to delay or cancel bond sales.

That month, the Federal Reserve cut the interest rate it charged banks. It later lowered its target rate for overnight loans between banks to between zero and 0.25 percent from 5.25 percent.

As the financial crisis spread, Lehman Brothers, which was founded in 1850, filed for the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. The government bailed out American International Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., while Bear Stearns Cos. and Merrill Lynch & Co. were acquired. It also assumed control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nation's two biggest mortgage-finance companies.

The collapse of so many financial giants worsened the credit freeze. Rates banks charged each other for three-month loans soared about fourfold to a record 4.63 percentage points more than Treasury bills of the same maturity on Oct. 10 from 1.17 percentage point a month earlier.

Signs the recession is easing may encourage companies to spend more cash, said Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst at S&P.

"Once they believe the economy is getting better and not just less worse, they'll start spending," Silverblatt said.