The DJIA went above 9,000 today. The NASDAQ posted its twelfth consecutive rise. Existing home sales showed a gain and the massive army of the jobless got smaller again. Earnings came on strong, and only the short sellers weren't happy at the end of the day.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,069.29 +188.03 (2.12%)
S&P 500 976.29 +22.22 (2.33%)
Nasdaq 1,973.60 +47.22 (2.45%)

Top Analyst Calls

Analyst upgrades:

• Citigroup upgraded Robert Half (NYSE: RHI) to Hold from Sell following the company's Q2 results, believing the worst may be behind the company. Citi raised its target on shares to $24 from $18.
• Goldman upgraded AnnTaylor (NYSE: ANN) to Buy from Neutral and raised its target to $13 from $6.50, citing improved merchandising and inventories.
• Baird upgraded TrueBlue (NYSE: TBI) to Outperform from Underperform and raised its target to $12 from $9, citing the better-than-expected Q2 report and guidance, strong balance sheet, and valuation.
• F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at BofA/Merrill.
• Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
• Sanmina (NASDAQ: SANM) was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse.

Analyst upgrades:

• Deutsche Bank upgraded HealthSouth (NYSE: HLS) and Rehabcare (NYSE: RHB) to Buy from Hold after raising its Post Acute Care sector view to Positive from Neutral. The firm believes volumes and margin leverage can drive better than expected Q2 results and 2009 guidance. The firm raised its target on HealthSouth shares to $16 from $12 and on Rehabcare to $28 from $19.
  
• Jefferies upgraded Moody's (NYSE: MCO) to Hold from Underperform to reflect stabilizing credit markets and its belief regulatory concerns are overstated. The firm raised its target on shares to $30 from $19.
  
• Keefe Bruyette upgraded Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) to Outperform from Market Perform as it finds the stock inexpensive following the better than expected results. The firm has a $195 target on shares.
• Vale (NASDAQ: VALE) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
  
• CNOOC (NYSE: CEO) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
  
• International Game Tech (NYSE: IGT) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Janney Montgomery.
  

Analyst upgrades:

• ING upgraded Roche (OTC: RHHBY) to Buy from Hold as it believes Roche will not pay more than $100/share for Genentech (NYSE: DNA) and that the Avastin adjuvant data due April 2009 provides significant upside potential.
  
• Oppenheimer upgraded Motorola (NYSE: MOT) to Outperform from Perform on valuation as it believes sentiment is at an all-time low and the stock has limited downside. The firm set a $5 target on shares.
  
• Morgan Stanley upgraded Comerica (NYSE: CMA) to Equal Weight from Underweight citing valuation that adequately reflects credit deterioration in its commercial-heavy loan portfolio and aggressive government action.
• Cheesecake Factory (NASDAQ: CAKE) and Nucor (NYSE: NUE) were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
  
• Pinnacle Entertainment (NYSE: PNK) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.

If you've been watching earnings this past week, or if you read last week's Week in Preview, then this coming week may leave you feeling a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day. That is, again analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect earnings declines to be more frequent and deeper than earnings gains.

Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW), Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC), IAC Interactivecorp (NASDAQ: IACI), Moody's Corp. (NYSE: MCO), Elizabeth Arden Inc. (NASDAQ: RDEN), Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE: DVN), Diebold Inc. (NYSE: DBD), Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE: TYC), United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. (NYSE: RL), ITT Corp. (NYSE: ITT), and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) are scheduled to report quarterly results this week, and they're all expected to report double-digit declines in earnings.

But again this week, let's take a look who Wall Street feels may have done well in the past quarter.

Moody's (NYSE: MCO), a provider of credit ratings, closed at $21.61 Wednesday. MCO is scheduled to announce Q3 EPS on October 29. Warren Buffett's Berkshire owned a 19% stake in MCO as of December 31, 2007. MCO November call option implied volatility is at 117, puts are at 131; above its 26-week average of 58 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

USG (NYSE: USG), a building materials company, closed at $19.68 Wednesday. USG is scheduled to report Q3 EPS on October 28. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns 17% of USG. USG November call option implied volatility is at 71, puts are at 81; above its 26-week average of 44 according to Track Data suggesting larger price movement.

American Express (NYSE: AXP) closed at $25.02 Wednesday. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns a 13% stake in AXP. AXP November option implied volatility of 80 is above its 26-week average of 51 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

Analyst upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded shares of Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM) to Buy from Hold on valuation, as they see a long-term buying opportunity following the recent correction. The firm maintains a $29 target.
• Moody's (NYSE: MCO) was upgraded to Overweight from Underweight at Lehman.
  
• Boyd Gaming (NYSE: BYD) was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Merrill Lynch.

Analyst downgrades:

• Jefferies downgraded shares of Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT) to Hold from Buy on concerns about the company's ability to hit expectations and drive margin expansion in the face of an eroding CDMA revenue stream. The firm lowered their target to $7.25 from $11.
  
• B. Riley cut Charlotte Russe (NASDAQ: CHIC) to Neutral from Buy on concerns about how well the company can perform with the interim management team, especially in light of the current retail environment. The firm lowered their target to $14 from $17. Roth Capital downgraded shares to Sell from Hold to reflect the management uncertainty and lowered their target to $9 from $14.
  
• Goldman cut Warner Music (NYSE: WMG) to Sell from Neutral and Deere (NYSE: DE) to Neutral from Buy.

Analyst initiations:

• Banc of America expects top-line growth at Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) to be driven by Denosumab and for investors to look to the stock for biotech exposure following the potential acquisition of Genentech (NYSE: DNA). The firm started shares with a Buy rating and $70 target.
• Sirius Satellite (NASDAQ: SIRI) was initiated at JP Morgan with a Neutral rating.
  

So the earnings crunch continues, and here's a look at some companies scheduled to report results this week that are anticipated to be big winners and losers in terms of earnings growth.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expect the following to report strong earnings growth when compared to the same period of the previous year.

• Apache Corp. (NYSE: APA): $4.10 EPS (+53.9%) on revenue of $3.8 billion (+54.6%)
• EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG): $2.34 EPS (+50.0%) on revenue of $1.7 billion (+62.2%)
• Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP): $0.47 EPS (+44.7%) on revenue of $2.6 billion (+11.5%)
• Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (NYSE: GT): $0.62 EPS (+43.5%) on revenue of $5.3 billion (+7.0%)
• Hess Corp. (NYSE: HES): $2.76 EPS (+38.4%) on revenue of $8.3 billion (+14.6%)
• Murphy Oil Corp. (NYSE: MUR): $2.19 EPS (+35.2%) on revenue of $7.8 billion (+126.2%)
• Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL): $2.08 EPS (+34.6%) on revenue of $1.0 billion (+40.1%)
• U.S. Steel Corp. (NYSE: X): $3.91 EPS (+32.0%) on revenue of $5.9 billion (+39.6%)
• Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW): $0.49 EPS (+30.6%) on revenue of $1.7 billion (+21.3%)
• Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM): $2.52 EPS (+27.4%) on revenue of $144.4 billion (+46.8%)

Clearly expectations are high for oil and energy. Other companies expected to report double-digit earnings growth include Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX), CVS Caremark Corp. (NYSE: CVS), NYSE Euronext Inc. (NYSE: NYX), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), and Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET).

S&P and Moody's (NYSE:MCO) do not have the best reputation these days. They missed most of the calls on the danger of subprime paper. Some of that has been blamed on computer problems. And, the dog ate my papers.

Now, S&P says it may downgrade its ratings on nine airlines and review one more. According to The New York Times, "In total, 10 airlines, including all the major carriers, are now under the CreditWatch negative designation." The companies include AMR (NYSE: AMR), Delta (NYSE: DAL) and United (NASDAQ: UAUA).

S&P says some of the airlines may even face Chapter 11.

It would be fair to ask where the ratings agency has been. Jet fuel prices are close to doubling in a year. Every airline faces huge losses throughout the rest of 2009. Some carriers have lost nearly 80% of their market value in a year. AMR now trades just above $6, down from almost $30. Its market cap is only 7% of annual revenue. In other words, the company trades close to its liquidation value.

S&P has image problems for a reason. It either gets its calls wrong, or it gives them out way too late.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 letter.

Reuters reports that Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) controls 19.6% of Moody's Corp. (NYSE: MCO), is saying that he thinks Moody's will be around a long time. Even though Berkshire Hathaway's $188 billion market capitalization is more than 20 times that of Moody's -- Buffett's $1.8 billion loss -- the 50% drop in the value of his 19.6% Moody's stake from its February 9, 2007 peak -- has to sting.

Moody's was already under fire over the U.S. mortgage market crisis when it took a fresh blow on Wednesday -- launching an investigation into a report that it had wrongly assigned triple-A ratings to about $4 billion of complex European debt products -- Constant Proportion Debt Obligations (CPDOs), funds that used borrowed money to bet on credit-default swaps -- and had then not downgraded them. Buffett's comment: "I don't think one day will permanently change the franchise value of Moody's."

As I posted, the ratings agencies competed for lucrative fees from investment banks that created and sold these asset-backed securities. Moody's took in $3 billion for such structured finance ratings between 2002 through 2006. The agencies that offered the best ratings won the business.

The notes out of the Fed gave no indication of rate cuts. Too much worry about inflation.

After a report showing that supplies have dropped, oil traded north of $132.00 per barrel today. Maybe T. Boone Pickens' call for $150 oil was intended to be by the end of the month rather than the end of the year. The minutes from the last FOMC meeting may say it all: increased inflation expectations, increased unemployment expectations, lowered GDP expectations. But no recession, at least not officially while the Fed describes the environment of stagflation. Below are the unofficial closing US index levels:

DJIA: 12,602.66 down 1.76%
S&P500: 1,390.86 down 1.59%
NASDAQ: 2,448.27 down 1.77%
52-WEEK LOWS
TOP 10 ANALYST CALLS

AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR) saw shares fall a sharp 25% after the company announced at its annual shareholder meeting that it was going to slash 11% or 12% from its flight capacity. To make bad matters worse, Soleil issued an untimely downgrade of the sector today.

Moody's (NYSE:MCO) made a mess of rating subprime debt and other risky instruments. It also said that some bonds help by municipal bond insurers was safe and that these companies should have "Aaa" ratings. Most of that turned out to be wrong and it helped cost investors, banks, and brokerage firms tens of millions of dollars.

Everyone from Moody's customers to Congress wants to know how the ratings could have been so wrong.

Now, the rating company has come up with a novel excuse for another series of mistakes. According to the FT , "Moody's awarded incorrect triple-A ratings to billions of dollars worth of a type of complex debt product due to a bug in its computer models." Several Moody's executives may have known about the mistake some time ago.

Comments from Moody's downplayed the problem. The company said that it adjusted its models from time to time.

The news may get the ratings agency into some real trouble, and it should. If the company was aware of the problem, why wasn't the information passed along to customers who rely on the ratings to make purchases?

Moody's ought to be dragged before regulators and be forced to give an entire accounting of the problem. Perhaps it should pay back customers who made bad decisions because of the errors. Of course, Moody's does not have that kind of cash.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Barnes & Noble Inc (NYSE: BKS) is considering a bid for rival bookseller Borders Group Inc (NYSE: BGP), the Wall Street Journal reported, a move which would allow Barnes & Noble to improve profits and reduce costs. Antitrust issues could prevent a deal.
• The Wall Street Journal also reported that Carl Icahn's effort to remove Yahoo! Inc's (NASDAQ: YHOO) board has picked up new supporters, including T. Boone Pickens, who acquired a 0.75% stake. Some Yahoo shareholders believe it is still too early to predict whether Icahn will be able to carry July 3's shareholder vote.
• A Financial Times investigation discovered that Moody's Corporation (NYSE: MCO) incorrectly awarded top ratings to billions of dollars to debt products due to an error in its computer models. Moody's said it is in the process of "conducting a thorough review" of the rating of the constant proportion debt obligations, which should have been up to four notches lower.

OTHER PAPERS:

• According to the people briefed on the matter, the New York Times reported that the buyout of Penn National Gaming Inc (NASDAQ: PENN) by Fortress Investment Group (FIG) and Centerbridge Parters may involve revised terms. The sources said the negotiations may "delay or even imperil" the deal.

Merrill Lynch upgraded Sirius (NASDAQ: SIRI) to "neutral" from "sell" according to Briefing.com. The news service also reports that Citigroup downgraded EDS (NYSE: EDS) from "outperform" from "market perform".

Goldman Sachs downgraded ITV to "sell" from "neutral," according to MarketWatch.

McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP) and Moody's (NYSE: MCO) were both started as "buy" in new coverage at Jefferies, according to 24/7 Wall St.

Someone had to pay for the fact that Moody's (NYSE: MCO) is being blamed for not doing a better job predicting the mortgage securities crisis. The reasoning is that the credit ratings agency was too close with some of the companies that issued the paper and did not look hard enough at how the system might come apart in a subprime lending meltdown.

As usual, it is not the CEO who is leaving. Moody's is dumping its president, a sign that the company is contrite, sees the error of its ways, and wants to do better. According to The Wall Street Journal Brian Clarkson's departure "effective by July, marks the highest-profile casualty to date in the controversy over the complicity of credit-rating firms in the subprime meltdown."

Of course, Mr. Clarkson did not act alone. Moody's has scores of analysts who looked at the data on the subprime market. Clarkson was at the top of the pyramid. Of course, the company's CEO was even more so.

The great tradition in American management is that blame should always fall to one person, or a small group of people, when something significant goes off-track at a company. The thinking is usually muddled. Responsibility almost always extends over a wider number of persons.

But, having Clarkson leave is good window dressing.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.