A monitoring of catalytic cracking processing is provided which uses near infrared (NIR) analysis to characterize cracking feeds, intermediates and products for chemical and physical properties such as saturates, monoaromatics, diaromatics, triaromatics, tetraaromatics, polar aromatics, total aromatics, thiophenes, distillation points, basic nitrogen, total nitrogen, API gravity, total sulfur, MCRT and % coker gasoil and the resulting characterization thereof. The NIR results can be used in FCC simulation software to predict unit yields and qualities.