Take Profits on Monday's In-the-Money Strategy

Four for five ain't bad in baseball, and in options its pretty unbelievable.

If you did any of my five options trades on Monday, you made enough to pay for a lifetime of Action Alerts PLUS and RealMoney.

But all good things come to an end, and I need you to take profits.

To recap, I talked about buying September in-the-money calls -- the ones that were flat with the common -- on the following companies:

• Schlumberger (SLB - commentary - Cramer's Take)
• Caterpillar (CAT - commentary - Cramer's Take)
• Boeing (BA - commentary - Cramer's Take)
• Procter & Gamble (PG - commentary - Cramer's Take)
• Altria (MO - commentary - Cramer's Take)

My bet was that this could be an explosive expiration because so many funds were set up short or underinvested and any surprise or even just a quarter-point cut in the fed funds rate would yield big gains. But I didn't know how big.

Here's how big: 7 points in Schlumberger, 5 in both Caterpillar and Boeing, 1 1/2 in P&G -- it did go to the $70 strike -- and Altria broke even.

Why did these work?

I saw a lot of people shorting the above call this week, taking advantage of the huge premium that was being offered for five days' worth of waiting. Whenever I see that kind of premium, I know to strike.

That's a sign that people are just scalping a point or two, betting there is no way that the out-of-the-money calls well above the market would become in-the-moneys. That's just what happened.

More important, I want to talk about theory. Theory said the market was bad: "Oil's bad. The dollar's bad. The bonds are not-so-hot. The gold price is soaring. Homes are not out of the woods."

In theory, none of these trades should have been done. none of them.

In reality, they made you a fortune; doubles on three, a 25% gain on one and flat on the last.

I want you to remember these trades -- and the few of you who actually did them, I would love it if you would take the next step in your investing with another of TheStreet.com's services and also give some to charity.

These trades make me wish that I were back in the game. Fortunately you are; I hope you did them.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Caterpillar, Altria and TheStreet.com.

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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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