Understanding Your Cash (Locked, Tradable, Reserve)

After a purchase or sale, it is natural to look straight at your balance. But which balance are you reading? TraderLobby shows cash, the value of holdings, tradable amounts, and reserves. These figures answer different questions. In this chapter, we will give each number a clear meaning so that a large total does not get mistaken for money available to spend.

Begin with the Paper or Live label. We will use Paper examples and read-only inspection throughout this lesson. Paper balances belong to the simulated account. They are not a statement of money at your exchange. You can learn the whole process from the demonstration without adding funds, changing a setting, or placing another trade.

In Live, also identify the selected exchange connection. The header can show a connection label, and API settings leads to the connection controls. A balance from one connection should not be compared with another account as though they were one wallet. Changing the selected context changes the information you are looking at; it does not move money between those accounts.

Next, read the currency and the kind of figure. Paper uses dollar amounts in these cash displays. The Live header uses a Cash label for the app's reported dollar cash figure. Do not treat that as proof that every asset you own is a dollar, or that every market accepts the same quote asset. A market's full pair still matters when you review an order.

Cash and holdings are different categories. Cash is the account amount reported as cash in that context. A holding is an asset you already own, with a displayed value based on the price information available to the app. A holding worth four hundred dollars is not the same as four hundred dollars already available as cash for another purchase.

Imagine a clearly labeled example with six hundred dollars of cash and holdings valued at four hundred dollars. Together they represent one thousand dollars of account value under that example's assumptions. They do not represent one thousand dollars of cash. This distinction will stay with us as we follow the same example through the rest of the lesson.

Check freshness and errors before explaining a difference. A Live unavailable message or a dash is not a confirmed zero balance. A visible figure may also come from an earlier update while another view is refreshing. Read the selected context and any status information available instead of deciding that missing or delayed information means money has disappeared.

Your first checkpoint is a complete description: I am in this mode, viewing this account or connection, reading this currency and this type of value. That sentence may feel slower than glancing at a number, but it saves confusion later. Once you know what the figure belongs to, you can start comparing it with the other figures on purpose.

The word total needs a second question: total of what? In the header, the main balance figure describes cash for the selected context. The nearby Locked and Tradable labels describe related amounts. In Portfolio, Value describes holdings. These numbers sit close together, but their location does not make them separate piles of money that you should add automatically.

In Paper, select Reserve to inspect Profit Reserve Settings. Opening the dialog is a review action; it does not change the reserve. Here you will see Total Balance, Locked, marked as Profit Reserve, and Tradable Balance. Read those labels within this dialog. Its Total Balance includes the Paper cash plus the app's current valuation of open holdings.

That means the reserve dialog's Total Balance can be larger than the cash figure in the header without either view describing a new deposit. Return to our example: six hundred dollars in cash plus four hundred dollars in holdings gives a Total Balance of one thousand dollars. The four hundred is still in the holdings category, even though the dialog includes its value in the total.

Now suppose two hundred of those six hundred cash dollars are marked as reserve. For this Paper example, the tradable amount is four hundred dollars. The reserve is already included in cash. Adding six hundred cash, two hundred reserve, and four hundred tradable would count the same cash more than once. Reserve and tradable explain the cash allocation; they do not create extra cash.

The relationship in this example is useful to say out loud: six hundred cash consists of two hundred reserve and four hundred tradable. Then the four hundred of holdings sits beside the cash when we discuss total account value. Keep those two comparisons separate. One breaks cash into categories; the other combines cash and asset value.

Potential Cash Realize is another figure that needs care. It estimates cash together with what holdings could contribute under the app's valuation. It is not a completed sale or an exchange payout. In the desktop app, its control can open a portfolio sale review, so do not use it as a harmless calculator button without reading the screen it opens.

Changes in holdings prices can change a total value even if no cash transaction occurs. If the example holdings rise from four hundred to four hundred and twenty dollars, the estimated total becomes one thousand and twenty. That does not mean twenty dollars has already been added to cash. An open-position value and a recorded cash result are different kinds of evidence.

Before leaving the page, point to a cash figure, a holdings figure, and a total that includes both. Then explain where the reserve is already counted. You are finished when you can compare the displays without adding every visible number together. The aim is not to memorize a dashboard layout; it is to understand which categories each label includes.

Locked can sound like a single explanation for every unavailable amount. In this app, we need to be more specific. The header's Locked label represents the reserve figure supplied for that context. In Paper, its description is locked profit reserve. It is not a complete list of every pending order, exchange hold, or restriction that might affect an action.

A reserve marks cash that the app separates from its tradable calculation. In our Paper example, two hundred dollars are reserved within six hundred dollars of cash. That leaves four hundred shown as tradable. Locking that amount does not turn it into a separate bank account, create an additional asset, or prove that it is protected from every kind of loss.

A pending action is a different matter. A request can be waiting for confirmation while records or available amounts are still changing. You should investigate the request and its status, not assume the header's Locked figure will rise by exactly that order's value. The label does not promise to explain every stage of an order's handling.

There is also a distinction between cash reserve and reserved asset quantity. In the position sell dialog, Owned, Available, and Reserved describe units of that particular asset. A position could show one unit owned, zero point eight available, and zero point two reserved. Those are asset units, not dollar cash amounts in the header's profit reserve.

Owning an asset also means its value is no longer simply waiting as cash for a second purchase. If cash paid for a holding, do not count both the cash that was spent and the holding it bought as available funding. The recorded purchase and updated account views should show how the categories changed. We will trace that change on the final page.

Live has another important distinction. The current connection summary separates reported cash from the amount allowed by its trading budget. Cash above that budget can appear as project reserve. That is a limit within TraderLobby's connection setup; it does not, by itself, mean the exchange placed a withdrawal lock on those funds or moved them elsewhere.

If an amount is unavailable and you cannot explain why, begin with the relevant evidence. Check the mode and connection, the reserve or budget setting, any unresolved request, and the position's available units if you are selling. Do not press Reset Reserve simply to test a theory. A reset changes a setting and can change tradable cash; it is not a diagnostic refresh.

Your checkpoint is to name the kind of restriction you are seeing. Is it a Paper cash reserve, a Live project budget boundary, a position's reserved units, or an unresolved action? If the screen does not establish the reason, say that it remains uncertain. A careful explanation is more useful than calling every difference locked money and treating them all the same way.

Tradable cash answers a narrower question than total value: how much cash does this view identify for new trading activity under its current rules? Locate Tradable beside the header balance, or Tradable Balance in the Paper reserve dialog. Read it in the same context as the other figures. A matching word on a different account is not necessarily the same amount.

For the current Paper account calculation, tradable cash is cash minus the reserve, with the displayed result not going below zero. In our example, six hundred minus two hundred gives four hundred. This tells us how the cash is divided for this calculation. It does not turn four hundred dollars into a guarantee that every four-hundred-dollar request will be accepted.

For the current Live connection summary, the app compares reported cash with the configured trading budget and uses the smaller amount as tradable cash. Imagine a separate Live illustration with six hundred dollars reported and a four-hundred-dollar budget. The summary shows four hundred tradable and two hundred project reserve. Keep this Live illustration separate from the Paper reserve settings.

If reported cash falls to three hundred while that budget remains four hundred, the budget does not supply the missing hundred dollars. Tradable cash cannot be created by a configuration number. Equally, a budget of zero can leave tradable cash at zero even when the exchange reports cash. Read both the reported amount and the configured limit before explaining the result.

An order still has other conditions to satisfy. The account must have the required access, the connection must support submission, and the market and requested amount must be valid. Available funds can change, and pending reservations or execution checks may affect what is allowed. Tradable is useful account information, not unconditional permission to click any order button.

A displayed amount can also become older than the action you are about to take. A recent purchase, another strategy request, or a refresh delay can leave two screens briefly out of step. Recheck the relevant records and current context. Do not submit several requests against the same displayed cash while assuming each request gets an independent copy of it.

In Paper, the header also provides controls for adding or removing simulated cash. Those adjustments change the practice account; they are not real deposits or withdrawals. In Live, the header instead directs you to API settings for the connection and its capital controls. This lesson only reads those controls. No change is needed to prove you understand the labels.

Before proceeding, explain both the amount and its limit: this view shows this much tradable cash, calculated from these figures, but execution still needs confirmation. That sentence leaves room for the checks the app has not yet performed. It also prepares you to recognize a rejection or uncertain result without assuming the cash display promised an outcome it never promised.

The Reserve button in Paper opens Profit Reserve Settings. Start by reading the figures before touching the inputs: Total Balance, Locked, marked as Profit Reserve, and Tradable Balance. Remember that Total Balance here includes holdings, while the tradable figure is based on cash and reserve. Opening this dialog does not lock, release, or transfer money.

The dialog includes a Skim Rate field and a Save button. Its description says that the setting automatically locks a fraction of realized profits. Realized means a result associated with completed activity, rather than a gain that exists only in an open position's changing value. The setting describes reserve behavior; it does not promise that any trade will make a profit.

Read the rate's format carefully. In this Paper dialog, zero point five represents fifty percent, not half of one percent. The interface describes a range from zero point three to zero point six. That is thirty to sixty percent. These are explanations of the displayed control, not a recommendation to select a particular rate. The header's Reserve tooltip can express the rate as a percentage.

A saved rate is configuration, not proof that a particular sale increased the reserve. The account and execution path must actually apply the behavior. Check the resulting balances and recorded activity after an event rather than calculating an automatic reserve increase from a green profit number alone. Do not assume every Paper or Live workflow uses an identical reserve rule.

Manual Top-up has a different purpose. In this Paper dialog, entering an amount and selecting Lock requests that more existing cash be marked as reserve. It does not add a new deposit to the account. For example, moving fifty dollars from tradable cash into reserve changes the allocation of cash; under that example, the total cash remains the same.

Reset Reserve is another change, not a refresh. It opens a confirmation explaining that the reserve goes back to zero and that locked cash becomes tradable again. Read that confirmation and its scope before deciding. Resetting the reserve does not sell your holdings, undo old trades, or remove earlier losses. For this lesson, inspect the demonstration without performing a reset.

In Live, use API settings to review the selected connection's trading budget and project reserve controls. The Paper reserve dialog is not the editor for those Live amounts. A connection's skim settings also need to be read in that connection's context. Saving a capital setting does not transfer money to your bank, make an exchange withdrawal, or establish a guaranteed payout.

Finish with three distinctions. A rate describes configured behavior. Lock and Reset Reserve request changes to the Paper reserve allocation. A resulting balance or record shows what actually changed. If a save fails or the figures have not refreshed, keep the outcome uncertain until you verify it. Knowing which step you are viewing prevents a setting from being mistaken for a completed financial result.

A strategy can have settings that describe how much it may try to use. Those settings are instructions and limits, not a second wallet filled with new money. If two strategy cards refer to the same account, they do not each receive a separate copy of its cash. Start with the account context before comparing the amounts on the cards.

In the strategy settings available to your account, look for Capital allocation. The current choices include Strategy default, a fixed amount, and a percentage of PCR per entry. PCR refers to Potential Cash Realize. We have already seen why that estimate differs from cash already available. A percentage of an estimated account figure still needs to fit the actual conditions for an entry.

A fixed entry amount describes a target amount for an entry. It does not reserve an unlimited supply of that amount for every future opportunity. For a simple illustration, setting a one-hundred-dollar target does not fund ten purchases just because ten candidates appear. The account's available resources and the strategy's other limits still have to support each request.

Position slots answer a different question: how many positions the strategy is allowed to use under its settings. A Used figure compared with a slot count is not a dollar balance. Two available slots do not prove enough cash exists to fill them. A dollar allocation and a position count are different units, so do not substitute one for the other.

The current settings can also show Preferred minimum entry and a choice to use remaining cash. Read the help text beside those controls. Using remaining cash is conditional, including whether the exchange minimum can still be met. It is not permission to ignore minimums, spend more than the account has, or assume that any leftover amount will always produce a valid order.

Think about two strategies sharing an illustrative four hundred dollars of tradable cash. Each may have a two-hundred-dollar target, but those targets are plans, not additional deposits. If one request commits resources, the other request must be checked against the resulting availability. Do not add the four hundred in cash to both targets and call the account worth eight hundred dollars.

The connection trading budget, the strategy allocation, and the strategy's open positions also have different roles. The connection budget limits the cash considered for that Live setup. Allocation describes how a strategy sizes an intended entry. Open positions show assets already held. Their values can be relevant to supervision without becoming separate cash balances that can all be spent again.

Your checkpoint is to read one strategy card in complete units: its mode, allocation choice, target if shown, slot count, and current position usage. Then return to the account's cash context. You do not need to enable a strategy or save different settings for this exercise. The useful result is knowing which numbers describe resources and which describe instructions for using them.

Let's bring the labels together in one clearly marked Paper example. We begin with six hundred dollars of cash, holdings valued at four hundred dollars, and two hundred dollars reserved within the cash. That gives four hundred dollars tradable and one thousand dollars of total value. The reserve is included in the cash, so we count it only once.

For the arithmetic on this page, assume prices do not change, no fees apply, no reserve adjustment occurs, and there is no other activity. These assumptions make the categories easy to follow. They are not promises about a real order or every Paper execution. You can complete the exercise by watching the example; no new purchase is required.

Now the example buys one hundred dollars of an asset, and the result is confirmed. Cash falls from six hundred to five hundred. Holdings value rises from four hundred to five hundred under our unchanged-price assumption. Total value remains one thousand. The account exchanged part of its cash for a holding; it did not gain another hundred dollars simply because a new position appeared.

The reserve stays at two hundred in this example, so tradable cash becomes three hundred. That is five hundred cash minus two hundred reserve. Notice that the reserve dialog can still show Total Balance of one thousand while the header cash and tradable values are lower. The views are answering different questions about the same account, not disagreeing about a missing deposit.

Next, the example sells that one-hundred-dollar holding for the same amount, and the sale and account update are confirmed. Cash returns to six hundred, holdings value returns to four hundred, and tradable returns to four hundred with the reserve unchanged. This is a category demonstration, not a profitable trade. Actual fees, price changes, or reserve adjustments would change the final numbers.

To review an actual result, match the same mode, account, pair, and approximate time in Portfolio and Transactions. Use the executed quantity and recorded values rather than the earlier estimate. If other strategies were active or another action was pending, include that activity in the explanation. A before-and-after comparison is only clean when you know what happened between the two views.

If the figures do not line up, check them in a deliberate order. First, confirm context and currency. Then check refresh status and unresolved requests. Finally, check what each total includes, whether a reserve or budget changed, and whether you are comparing cash with holdings value. Avoid changing settings just to make two numbers match. Investigate the definition before changing the account.

You have finished this chapter when you can tell the story without counting any money twice: here is cash, here is the portion identified as reserve, here is tradable cash, and here is the value still held in assets. Explain any unresolved difference honestly. Next, Reading Your Exit Alerts and Portfolio will help you interpret the holdings and exit information that sit alongside the cash figures you now know how to read.