Market Recap: The Big Jobs Report, Apple Challenges Pandora, and Intel Warns of Dark Clouds

Markets closed up on Wall Street today: Dow +0.11%, S&P +0.40%, Nasdaq +0.02%, Oil +0.86%, Gold +1.87%.

On the commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) climbed to $98.16 a barrel. Precious metals rose, with Gold (NYSE:GLD) rising to $1,739 an ounce while Silver (NYSE:SLV) increased 3.05% to settle at $33.61.

Here’s your Cheat Sheet to today’s top stock stories:

Today’s job report announced that with the addition of only 96,000 jobs last month, the number of people in the workforce dropped to its lowest level in 31 years, undermining the momentum President Obama may have gained from his speech to the Democratic National Convention last night. Unemployment dropped 0.2 percent from July, to 8.1 percent, for the most part because 368,000 people stopped looking for jobs.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is working on developing a Pandora (NYSE:P) rival in a move that could have the Internet radio industry very worried. Apple, which already has digital music figured out through its iTunes, is now planning to send streams of music customized to users’ choices through a preinstalled app on the company’s mobile devices. It is already negotiating with major record labels, The Wall Street Journal said.

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After hitting a year to date high of $29.18 per share in May, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) is down on news of weaker than expected revenue. The company released a statement adjusting its projected revenue to $13.2 billion. Intel had originally projected revenues from $13.8 to $14.8 billion but “weaker than expected demand in a challenging macroeconomic environment” has led to weak enterprise PC sales and slowing demand in emerging markets.

We mentioned before that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has taken a step toward dominating the Internet with Google Fiber. But like with any good battle for market share, there’s more here than meets the eye. Fred Campbell, a former FCC official, reports, “Google received stunning regulatory concessions and incentives from local governments, including free access to virtually everything the city owns or controls.” This includes office space, power, marketing, and direct mail connections.

Google expects other cities to be “bidding” on who gets Fiber next. If this means more Kansas City style subsidization, Google could quickly find itself controlling not just how people use the Internet, but how they access it. Verizon (NYSE:VZ), Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), and other smaller cable companies may not stand a chance.

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