when an individual investor buys shares of stock they are providing equity capital to a company the biggest splashes in the world of raising equity capital come of course when a company launches an initial public offering ipo 
a company s working capital is its liquid capital assets available for fulfilling daily obligations it is calculated through the following two assessments working capital measures a company s short term liquidity more specifically it represents its ability to cover its debts accounts payable and other obligations that are due within one year note that working capital is defined as current assets minus its current liabilities a company that has more liabilities than assets could soon run short of working capital any business needs a substantial amount of capital to operate and create profitable returns balance sheet analysis is central to the review and assessment of business capital trading capital is a term used by brokerages and other financial institutions that place a large number of trades daily trading capital is the amount of money allotted to an individual or a firm to buy and sell various securities investors may attempt to add to their trading capital by employing a variety of trade optimization methods these methods attempt to make the best use of capital by determining the ideal percentage of funds to invest with each trade in particular to be successful traders need to determine the optimal cash reserves required for their investing strategies a big brokerage firm like charles schwab or fidelity investments will allocate considerable trading capital to each of the professionals who trade stocks and other assets for it capital vs moneyat its core capital is money however for financial and business purposes capital is typically viewed from the perspective of current operations and investments in the future capital usually comes with a cost for debt capital this is the cost of interest required in repayment for equity capital this is the cost of distributions made to shareholders overall capital is deployed to help shape a company s development and growth 