According to the August jobs report, the U.S. lost another 54,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rose to 9.6%. The government claimed that the private sector added 67,000 jobs, although most of these jobs came from the Health Care and Social Assistance category and from Education, both of which are filled with government supported jobs.

Wall Street was abuzz last week with the news that Burger King Holdings (NYSE: BKC) is being purchased by private equity firm 3G Capital for a cool $3.2 billion. Now Main Street gets is serving of Burger King business news – this time with a sweeping plan at the Home of the Whopper to reinvent its breakfast menu.

Take Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), the video game publisher behind such successful franchises as Grand Theft Auto and Bioshock, seems to be weathering the steep decline in video game sales. The company closed its third quarter yesterday, with Take Two earnings posting a return to profitability.

Ever since late April, when Hertz Global Holdings (NYSE: HTZ) made its original offer for Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. (NYSE: DTG), Avis Budget Group, Inc. (NYSE: CAR) has been trying to upset the deal and get Dollar to accept a counter offer.

The new iTunes social network Ping gets a fighting chance with the introduction of Facebook connectivity -- then quickly has that chance taken away. Apple.com provides a tantalizingly mundane preview of the new iPad update coming in November. Finally, two Apple patents hint at how Apple TV will allow users to browse content and store information.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs talks a good game. At yesterday's Apple media event in San Francisco, Jobs proudly announced that the Apple iPod Touch is the world's "number one portable game player" and that there over 1.5 billion pieces of game and entertainment software have been downloaded on iPods through iTunes and the Apple App Store.

September is off to a wonderful start, with a 255-point Dow increase yesterday. But last month also started with a big (208-point) rise August 1 but then fell -4.3% for the full month, so Day One does not tell us where any month is going. As the financial media keep reminding us, September is the "worst month for stocks," although this has not been true lately. September has risen in four of the last five years.

The proposed acquisition by BHP Billiton plc (NYSE: BHP) of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT) is not in China's best interests, and the government is searching for a way to make its own play for Potash Corp. China apparently believes that it must take direct action to stop the sale because it is pretty clear that no other company is going to step up with a counter offer.

While the U.S. may appear to have steadied itself somewhat from the mortgage crisis, the wake of banking destruction shows little sign of abating, with more than 800 banks – mostly smaller lending institutions – now facing serious threats and risk of failure.

Sony Corp (NYSE: SNE) likes a good fight and that's just what they're going to get. Just 24 hours after Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: APPL) unveiled their new iTunes software, Sony announced a new streaming digital music service of their own. But whether Sony can compete with iTunes won’t be as quickly decided.

Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news for September 2. The Apple Inc. media event went off without a hitch yesterday as…

Foreign stocks in developed countries as represented by the iShares MSCI EAFE Index Fund (NYSE: EFA) have underpeformed this year, while emerging market stocks as represented by the Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE: VWO) are flat. Currency weakness is putting a damper on the performance of foreign securities, particularly Europe investments as represented by the Vanguard European ETF (NYSE: VGK).

Students of market history get a chill when the calendar flips to the first month of autumn. And for good reason: September is by far the worst month for stocks. Since 1928, the S&P 500 has lost on average 1.2% for the month. Compare this to the 0.3% average loss in February, the second worst month.