AIG, Southwest: S&P Gainers

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- A pair of Wall Street upgrades allowed American International Group(AIG) and Southwest Airlines(LUV) to buck the bearish trend and end trading as the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 dropped 14.42 points, or 1.02%, Wednesday to 1,398.96, as the Federal Reserve's "no new quantitative easing" message and renewed Eurozone worries sent the markets into selloff mode.

Shares of American International Group rose 5.34% to $32.52. The insurance company's stock was upgraded by Bernstein Research analysts to outperform from market perform because they think the stock has "50% upside from here."

AIG has an estimated price-to-earnings ratio for next year of 10.88X; the average for full-line insurance companies is 11.62X. For comparison, Hartford Financial Services Group(HIG) and CNA Financial(CNA) both have lower forward P/Es of 5.61X and 10.2X, respectively.

Twelve of the 18 analysts who cover AIG rated it hold. Five analysts gave the stock a buy rating and one rated it sell.