XXV — VXX negative percentage move or VXX short?

Update: I do not believe XXV is a good way to short VXX, or volatility in general.  It has very little upside remaining (maximum value will be $40/share),  see this post for more details.

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When the XXV ETN first came out in early July there was some discussion on whether Barclays’ intent was to match the inverse of the percentage moves of the VXX, or to act more like a true VXX short (with management fees of course).  From the chart below you can see that the actual performance matches true short performance the best (especially in early August), but surprisingly the two different approaches have both tracked the inverse VXX well.

XXV booked its first million share day on its 15th day of trading—August 6th, and average volumes have been running over 400k.  You have to imagine that Barcalys is happy with this new product.