In period mode, the first column after properties shows the total for the selected periods. This makes sense for streams that have cumulative data, such as 'sales invoices', but in streams that hold a snapshot of data showing the variance over time, such as 'stock on hand', the total is meaningless.
On this type of stream, you can display the period total as an average, rather than a sum of the periods, via Options > Totals as average.
Applying totals as average does not change the first 'totals' row of the view, just the totals column.
In the first image below, the 'Total' column displays the cumulative value of three month's worth of sales. In the second image, the totals column displays the average of those sales.
Typical view
Totals as average view