What to Trade After the Jobs Report
By: 
The U.S. jobs report made plenty of investors happy—but dollar traders were left in the dust. Here's how to use currencies to trade on the news. Hint: go across the border.
How about those 216,000 new jobs? Pretty nice, huh?
"We've got the biggest kahuna on the planet, the U.S. economy, growing and creating jobs," said Andrew Busch, global currency and public policy strategist for BMO Capital Markets, speaking to CNBC's Melissa Lee.
Not only that, business sentiment is remarkably strong, said Rebecca Patterson, global head of currencies and commodities for J.P. Morgan's private bank.
But the dollar didn't share in the party, thanks to dovish comments from a Fed official and the perception that any U.S. interest rate hikes are quite a ways off despite the jobs figures.
"We're really thinking the Fed is not going to raise rates that soon," Patterson said.
So how can you use currencies to trade on this bullish economic news? Patterson suggests taking a step across the border.
Investors should "put money out there and get higher yields than they can get at home," she told Lee.
"I'm looking mainly at currencies that offer me rising and attractive yields, hopefully current account deficits that aren't too big," she said, and solid fundamentals.
Specifically, Patterson recommends buying the Mexican peso . Mexican policy interest rates are a healthy 4.5%, she pointed out, and the country is a significant oil exporter. Even better, some 80% of Mexico's exports go to its northern neighbor.
"If the U.S. is recovering, Mexico is going to be benefiting from that," Patterson said. "It's kind of a leveraged play on the U.S. recovery."
Patterson recommends selling the yen - which she believes is unlikely to rise given the problems in Japan - and buying the peso at current levels, around 7.11.
She would look for a target around 7.4 - which she thinks will only take a week or two - and a stop loss of 6.94. That adds up to a 4% upside and a 2% downside risk. Not bad at all.
Tune In: CNBC's "Money in Motion Currency Trading" airs on Fridays at 5:30pm.
"Money in Motion Currency Trading" repeats on Saturdays at 7pm.
