Investments is the worth of your long positions minus the worth of your short positions. The worth of these positions is calculated by multiplying the number of shares in the position and the current price of the stock.
Savings is the amount of money you have in your account. This includes any money deposited there temporarily to cover your short sales.
Total is the sum of your investments on your dashboard and your money in savings, also commonly referred to as your net worth. This is what Inkling uses to calculate your position on the leader board.
Available today = Savings - Amount put aside to cover your short positions.
More about "Available today"
This is the amount of money you have to buy shares. The reason this number may be different than your
"savings" is you may have short positions.
If you have sold any shares short, i.e. you answers "Chances are less than..." we must make sure you have enough money to cover the "risk" these types of positions carry if they do actually occur because in essence, you bet they would not occur.
For example, if you sold short 10 shares of a particular answer, that position could theoretically cash out at $100 per share if it is the correct answer. You therefore have 10 * $100 = $1,000 worth of risk with this position.
In this example, if you had $5000 in savings, you'd only have $4000 of an available balance to buy other shares.
The risk short positions carry goes away when the position is liquidated.
Note that when you are purchasing back a position you sold short, you are also using your available today balance, but we only include the risk from your other short positions.