Instead of just trading on the jobs data, Annelena Lobb has this report on trading the jobs data.

Predicting the jobs number is an inexact but popular science. The economy lost 20,000 jobs in April, according to the Department of Labor, far less ugly than the 85,000 decline Wall Street economists expected.

Now futures traders are betting on the number too. On Sunday, CME Group opened trade on nonfarm payrolls futures and options on futures. Futures traders were slightly more optimistic about the labor market than those doom-and-gloom Wall Street economists — especially on Wednesday, when the Fed handed down an interest-rate decision and a statement that implied the central bank was becoming less concerned with sluggish economic growth.

But traders didn’t get close to the real jobs number, either — payrolls futures settled at a forecast of negative 80,000 jobs on Monday, negative 70,000 on Tuesday, a bet on negative 60,000 on Wednesday and negative 75,000 yesterday.

The nonfarm payrolls futures market is brand new and the contract is very thinly traded, said Felix Carabello, CME’s director of alternative investments, in a conversation Wednesday. That’s typical of new markets, and the next effort will be to get a critical mass of transactional activity, he said.

Traders can use the nonfarm payrolls contracts to offset the effect of jobs data on other commodities — eurodollar or S&P 500 futures, for example — or just to trade on the index itself. The contracts don’t incorporate any later revisions to monthly jobs figures.

“Traders [want] ways to commoditize and monetize information,” Mr. Carabello said. “Established commodities markets are pretty efficient – there needs to be another way to extract value.”