Make Pin Action Part of the Plan Again

Pin action abounds. Royal Ahold's (AHO - commentary - Cramer's Take) food service division gets a $7 billion bid from KKR and you ask yourself, "Should we really have sold Sysco (SYY - commentary - Cramer's Take) so aggressively? Maybe that was a mistake.

If MAF Bancorp (MAFB - commentary - Cramer's Take) can get a bid, how about Alabama National (ALAB - commentary - Cramer's Take). Why not buy Downey (DSL - commentary - Cramer's Take)?

If Dow Jones (DJ - commentary - Cramer's Take) gets a bid, maybe it's scary to sell The New York Times (NYT - commentary - Cramer's Take).

Or if someone is bidding for a hotel chain, how can you be short Wyndham (WYN - commentary - Cramer's Take) or Hilton (HLT - commentary - Cramer's Take)?

Penn National (PENN - commentary - Cramer's Take) may miss the quarter? Given all of the casino buyouts, don't you have to buy it on weakness?

Doubleclick? How about 24/7 (TFSM - commentary - Cramer's Take), Aquantive (AQNT - commentary - Cramer's Take), Value Click (VCLK - commentary - Cramer's Take)?

Lots of times these pin-action plays have been deadly since the market crash of 2000.

But in the 1980s and early 1990s they worked constantly.

They are working again now.

It requires you to suspend your critical thinking a bit -- as does buying, say, Dow Jones up here. Yet it works.

You need to consider the pin action again as part of your everyday game plan to make money.

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At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this post.

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Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. To see his personal portfolio and find out what trades Cramer will make before he makes them, sign up for Action Alerts PLUS. Watch Cramer on "Mad Money" weeknights on CNBC. Click here to order Cramer's latest book, "Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich," click here to order his book, "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get his second book, "You Got Screwed!" and click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict." While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column by clicking here.

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