Keep in mind that volatility is only going to get more wild going forward, now that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has approved a cash settled Futures market offering. This means that Wall St. traders and funds can now long and short Bitcoin without actually owning any Bitcoin. This will allow them to use their huge cash reserves to make pumps higher and dumps deeper.
In addition it means that where in the past we could see people buying up Bitcoin via the blockchain and prepare accordingly, with cash buying, they can just unload hundreds of millions on the market at any time to move the market the way they want and no one can prepare because you can't see USD moving.
What this means for holders is that if they are pushing the price down it could look like you've lost a ton of money, and then the price comes up during the middle of the month hugely and then a week or 2 later
shows you up hugely. So keep in mind that you need to look at gains as an overall yield curve over time (two to three months period) when buying and holding. As long as the coins are getting more valuable over time, you're winning,