Last month of the decade

Week 3:
Nov 30-Dec 4, 2009
$3150 -> $3950 (+25%)

Has anyone stopped to say, damn it's the last month of the DECADE? Weird...

Week 3 was...volatile. Fortunately, I didn't experience much volatility to the downside. Well, actually I did, but only after nearly doubling my money at one point. I noticed ongoing weakness in the financials in spite of overall market strength, shorted GS (bought puts), and eventually came out on top. What killed me later though was the foolish anticipation that AMZN would would continue its march upward (bought calls) in spite of logging 3 or 4 positive days in a row. I reversed my sentiment by attacking a stock that has been complacently drifting upward, my friend GOOG. For a while, it continued drifting upward at every opportunity, and my account had reached a low of $2800 on Friday. I started questioning my own judgement, but held on. There was a massive selloff much to my relief, but I totally underestimated the extent of the selloff. I rode the stock down about 5 points, but it eventually went down about 10 more. Could have doubled my money, but I'll make due with my 25% gain. I seriously need to appreciate the avalanching/snowballing effect selloffs can have, but it seems that every time I try to take advantage of these in anticipation of 'the big one,' my position eventually turns against me. I guess I'll have to settle for higher probability consistent gains rather than anticipating the rare two-bagger (or more).