Volatility ETN Turns Lower To Snap Win Streak, Despite Broad Stock Market Losses

The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN erased an earlier sharp gain to close down 2.2%, snapping a five-session win streak, despite the selloff in the broader stock market. Volume of 169.2 million shares made the VXX the most-active stock trading on U.S. exchanges Tuesday, according to FactSet. Earlier, the VXX was up as much as 3.3% at its intraday high; a six-session win streak would have been the longest since the one ending on Feb. 11, 2016, which was the day the S&P 500 closed at a 22-month low. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 closed Tuesday down 0.2%, to suffer a fourth-straight loss to a three-week low. The VXX is a measure of stock market volatility that tends to rise when stocks fall. Going back to when the VXX started trading in January 2009, the correlation coefficient between the VXX and the S&P 500 is -0.707, where -1.0 would mean they move exactly in opposite directions.