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Some days you know you have a winner, and some days you know you have a loser. Just like the loss of 473,000 jobs to 9.5% unemployment in June, today started as a losing day and ended up as a losing day. It feels as though the "lagging indicator" aspect of employment may lead us into a new leg-down in the recession. At least there was some bit of good news: bond yields came down.

Here were today's closing bell levels:

Dow 8,306.21 -197.85 (-2.33%)
S&P 500 898.88 -24.45 (-2.65%)
Nasdaq 1,798.12 -47.60 (-2.58%)

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Stocks opened up on the day and stayed up on the day, despite closing well off of the highs. We had three key economic reports hit at once as the Institute for Supply Management gave the June ISM Manufacturing data, while we saw pending home sales data and new construction spending data mixed for May. These actually ended up being contradictory numbers, and then the oil inventories did nothing to support higher oil prices.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,504.06 +57.06 (0.68%)
S&P 500 923.33 +4.01 (0.44%)
Nasdaq 1,845.72 +10.68 (0.58%)

Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades

American International Group (NYSE: AIG) has pulled itself out of penny-stock territory after its shareholders approved a 1-for-20 reverse stock split on Tuesday. However, the shares are swallowing some losses today nonetheless, as investors reshuffle their portfolios following the adjustment. AIG opened today at $19.65 after falling as low as $13 in premarket action.

CEO Edward Liddy reassured shareholders at the company's annual meeting that he's confident a new CEO and chairman will be named shortly. The bailed-out insurance issue also named some new directors to its board, at least seven of whom were recommended and approved by the U.S. Treasury Department or its trustees.

American International Group (NYSE: AIG), once the world's largest insurer, is selling assets outside the U.S. to repay a government bailout. The Carlyle Group, KKR, JC Flowers, and other U.S. private equity firms and Asian financial groups are reported to be interested in AIG's Taiwanese unit Nan Shan Life Insurance Co.

"Everyone hopes this is going to be a fire sale as AIG is in a difficult situation," said a local partner of Standard & Poor's.

Earlier this morning, embattled insurer American International Group (NYSE: AIG) announced that it is going to reduce its outstanding federal loans by $25 billion by giving a preferred stake in two spin-off units to the government. The two subsidiaries, American International Assurance and American Life Insurance, will be spun off into "special purpose vehicles" ahead of initial public offerings. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York will receive interests in the special purpose vehicles (SPVs), both of which will eventually become independent companies after the IPOs are complete.

The $25 billion breaks down like this: the Fed will receive $16 billion in preferred assets in American International Assurance and $9 billion in American Life Insurance. Reportedly, the outstanding debt for AIG will be cut to $15 billion thanks to this move. AIG now has as much as $182.5 billion in funding available from the government, extending the original offer of $85 billion from back in September.

In what an attorney calls a story of "anger, betrayal and cover-up," we are learning that former American International Group (NYSE: AIG) CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg may have taken $4.3 billion in stock from the company in 2005.

This "withdrawal" reportedly occurred shortly after Greenberg was forced out of the company as he was being investigated for accounting irregularities. Attorney Theodore Wells told a jury in Manhattan yesterday that Greenberg "was mad. He was angry," deciding to give the okay to tens of millions of shares being sold from a trust fund shortly after being jettisoned from the company. The fund was put together to provide incentive bonuses to a group of AIG management and employees that they would receive when they retired.

Remember when the United States government took a bunch of your money and bought crap securities from Bear Stearns and American International Group (NYSE: AIG) -- and promised we wouldn't lose money? The securities were temporarily undervalued because of an "illiquid marketplace" and we'd earn handsome returns.

Ah, yeah. About that. The Associated Press reports that "The Federal Reserve lost $5.25 billion in the first quarter on the securities it acquired with last year's bailouts of Bear Stearns and insurer American International Group, according to a report Wednesday. The loss on the holdings, which include mortgage-backed securities, reflected a decline in their value as the recession carried over into the first three months of this year. The cumulative loss on the Bear and AIG holdings comes to $16.46 billion since they were taken over last year."

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says we're trying to repeal what happened financially last year. Will it lead to strength industrially?

How low were we really? What was the real baseline pre-Lehman Brothers? What was going on in the country and the world before that financial atomic bomb dropped?

I struggle over that now, about what the true price of copper should be, about what the true price of oil should be, about the price of steel, all kinds of things. I try to figure out what the prices for everything were going to be before Lehman.

It has been a busy week in the world of sports business, with several stories vying for the spot as the big story of the week. That said, let's take a look at the news that surfaced.

First, Manchester United Football Club (that's soccer ladies and gents) announced that it will replace American International Group on its shirts with Aon in 2010. The agreement is called a basic 20-million-pound-a-year rights fee. Supposedly, the soccer team received bids from three or four different companies, but settled on Aon. Supposedly the deal includes Aon paying commissions to the club from the sale of insurance policies to the club's fan base along with match-related bonuses. It appears that Manchester United will make an extra five million pounds a year from this deal.

Today was one of those days where stocks looked lower early in the morning, traded lower, and stayed there. Despite recovering from triple-digit losses in the DJIA earlier on, we still closed down 65.63 at 8.675.24 on the DJIA.

The S&P took a bigger hit by almost 13.00 at a lower level of 931.76. Bond prices rallied and we saw a 9 basis point drop in the 10-Year Treasury to 3.55%.

Here were today's top analyst upgrades, and there were several key downgrades as well.

Reports today indicate that American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) may need yet another bailout from the federal government. This time, The New York Post states that AIG will likely require additional government guarantees before it can successfully sell its International Lease Finance Corp. (ILFC) aircraft leasing business.

"Already, the government has agreed to guarantee $5 billion of debt, but those remaining in the auction now want either more government aid or support from airline manufacturers," reports the Post. The newspaper notes that ILFC carries a $30 billion debt load, portions of which will soon mature, along with $50 billion in assets. The unit, which has been up on the auction block since last September, has a book value of $7.5 billion.

AIG shares slipped more than 6% this morning to trade at $1.46, extending their 52-week swoon of 95.7%. After smacking into resistance from its 10-month moving average, the stock is now struggling to maintain a foothold atop its recently supportive 10-week trendline.

Even though the security is trading fairly low on the charts already, some traders are betting on continued losses from AIG. Despite a 16.4% drop in short interest during the most recent reporting period, shorted shares still account for a hefty 9.7% of the stock's available float. Plus, peak put open interest in the June series lies at the 2 strike, with 17,975 contracts in residence.

Elizabeth Harrow is an analyst and financial writer in the research department at Schaeffer's Investment Research. She is featured in the video series Schaeffer's Daily Q&A on SchaeffersResearch.com.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that it's the most conservative player in an industry filled with gunslingers.

The keepers of the Dow Jones Industrial Average must have felt insurance-less after the defrocking of AIG (NYSE: AIG) (Cramer's Take), so it's fitting that they added Travelers (NYSE: TRV) (Cramer's Take) to the list, even as I would have preferred Ford (NYSE: F) (Cramer's Take) or Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take).

They needed a financial that wasn't a bank and there aren't many out there that still trade at anything but desperate levels or weren't saved by the government.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says some really good things are happening, but you wouldn't know it from reading the headlines.

You want to shoot yourself when you read these headlines. "Local Banks Face Big Losses," is the lead story in The Wall Street Journal, a fomented survey story telling us that commercial lending is going to sink local and community banks under a pile of $100 billion in bad loans.

This is news?

So what!

Today's run might be more banked on Indian election results, one earnings report, and an analyst upgrade. The National Association of Home Builders reported a slightly more optimistic builder report as well, but today's gains were well entrenched with or without housing data.

To show just how much these Indian stocks were up, here is a full list of how much these were up around the open. Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,506.31 +237.67 (2.87%)
S&P 500 909.76 +26.88 (3.04%)
Nasdaq 1,732.36 +52.22 (3.11%)

Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades
52-Week Highs

A report today in The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] indicates that the restructuring of American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) could be a multi-year process.

The paper cites an internal email sent to AIG employees on April 23, which describes an initiative known as "Project Destiny." The dreamily named plan involves a 45-day review of the insurance issue's various units, which is then meant to generate a longer-term road map for the future.

While the internal memo explains Project Destiny as an "effort to redefine the future of most of the major businesses within AIG," Chief Restructuring Officer Paula Reynolds described the initiative in terms indicating that all AIG needs to regain its joie de vivre is a torrid island affair with a younger man. "Simply put, we are going to get our groove back," she enthused.