TIME Magazine called it “the decade from hell” – and mercifully, it ends at the stroke of midnight Friday. The period from 2000 to 2009 featured everything citizens and investors would NOT want to remember – terrorist attacks brought close to home, retaliatory wars that bogged down and dragged on, natural disasters that destroyed parts of the American southeast and the South Pacific, and lastly, two world pandemics and two major economic recessions, each one more severe than the last.

While the medical community seems to be making headway on containing the deadly H1N1 flu outbreak, the emergence from the recession seems slower and less uncertain, but more signs are coming out that the world is becoming cheerier.

During the last week before Christmas, The S&P/TSX Composite Index climbed to 11,745.61, towering over the previous week’s close by 282.21 points, or 2.46%. The TSX Venture Exchange improved by 39.66 points, or 2.8%, to 1,469.86.

South of the border, the Dow Jones Industrials rocketed to a year-long high on Christmas Eve, closing at 10,520.10, a jump of 191.2 points, or 1.9%.

The S&P 500 index also hit a 2009 peak, closing Thursday at 1.126.48, higher by 24 points or 2.2%, while the tech-rich NASDAQ index closed at 2,285.69, a jump of 74 points, or 3.3% on an abbreviated week.

Economically speaking, a few days before Christmas, a new Conference Board survey was released, reporting that Canadians still have mixed views on the strength of the economic recovery, but that a quarter of respondents expected more jobs in their communities within six months.

The Conference Board's consumer confidence index rose 3.7 percentage points in December after two straight months of decline. The index hit 82.8 this month on a scale where the 2002 level equals 100.

Canadian retail sales rose 0.8% in October, The rise, which was in-line with expectations, was the eighth in 10 months. Revised data showed a 1.1% increase in September.

Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.2%, less than the 0.4% projected by experts and the 1% hike in the prior month.

The number of people on Employment Insurance benefits fell 0.5% to 809,600 in October, according to Statistics Canada.

Stateside, the Commerce Department on Tuesday released its final revision of third-quarter gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity. The government said that GDP rose 2.2% in the three months ended in September.

That was less than the 2.7% gain projected by economists surveyed by Briefing.com. The final GDP figure was also below the 3.5% growth rate the government first reported in October.

Nonetheless, it was still a marked improvement over the previous four quarters in which economic activity shrank.

The coming week is a fairly sparse one economically, what with consumer confidence in the States trickling in on Tuesday, and the usual weekly initial jobless claims figures on Thursday, New Year’s Eve.

The four stocks featured in this short week consisted of metals and mining whiz Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. (TSX-Venture:CEM) which faded back ever so slightly from its previous Friday perch of 26 cents to 24.5 cents on Christmas Eve, a slide of 1.5 cents or 5.8%. Compatriot Enpar Technologies (TSX-Venture:ENP) fought its way into the green during the week, moving as high on 28 cents on Wednesday, before settling back to 26.5 cents – still, a gain of a penny or 3.7%.

In the States, we spotlighted Health Enhancement Products, Inc. (OTCBB:HEPI), which remained flat at 25 cents, exactly the same as the previous Friday, while AspenBio Pharma, Inc. (Nasdaq:APPY) had its Christmas list answered, surging from $1.39 the previous Friday, to $1.48 on Tuesday, $1.60 on Wednesday, to peak at $1.64 on Christmas Eve, a gain of 25 cents or 18% on the week.

If you’d invested in all four stocks, you’d have seen an average return of nearly 4% on the week. If you’d invested in all four and sold at their highs, you’d have enjoyed an average return of 8.8%.

With the week looking good, the month of December was in general an upbeat month to end off the crazy decade we all have had to endure. In the economic docket for December came word that Gross Domestic Product for Canada was inching its way upward, but only that. December gross domestic product grew 0.2% in October, a second consecutive monthly advance. Production increased in most major sectors, as was the case in September.

Also announced earlier this month was the fact that the U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in two years during the third quarter, but the revised annual growth rate of 2.2% was much slower than initially reported, according to the Commerce Department. U.S. real gross domestic product increased for the first time since the spring of 2008, boosted by higher consumer spending, a rebound in investments in homes, a slower pace of inventory reduction, more exports, and robust government spending.

But because economic recovery is determined by how quickly money changes hands – and money by jobs – the mood turns cautious when one considers the unemployment rate, on both sides of the line. Statistics Canada said early in the month that employment rose by 79,000 in November, bringing the unemployment rate down 0.1 percentage points to 8.5%, but despite November's gain, employment was 321,000 below the peak of October 2008.

In the States, however, the unemployment rate surged to 10.2% in October, and remained at 10% in November, and it suddenly seemed possible that the nation might yet confront the worst joblessness since the Great Depression, leaving many Americans wondering if the economic recovery was stalled.

At the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed Americans was 7.5 million, and the jobless rate was 4.9%.

Lastly, Jim Balsillie may have failed this fall to land the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes and relocate them to Hamilton, but his firm, Blackberry maker Research in Motion (TSX:RIM), demonstrated Stanley Cup financial results toward the end of the year.

Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2010 was $3.92 billion, up 11% from $3.53 billion in the previous quarter and up 41% from $2.78 billion in the same quarter of last year. During the quarter, RIM shipped approximately 10.1 million devices, including its 75-millionth BlackBerry smartphone.

Approximately 4.4 million net new BlackBerry subscriber accounts were added in the quarter, boosting the account base to approximately 36 million.

On the month, the top performing Canadian stock of the ones we featured was Smartcool Systems Inc. (TSX-Venture:SSC). This company manufactures and distributes the Smartcool Energy Saving Module (ESM)(TM) and the ECO(3)(TM), which make refrigeration and air conditioning systems more efficient. Starting from a 22-cent perch on December 11, the stock grew like the proverbial weed, climbing to an intraday high of 37.5 cents on December 23, but closing Christmas Eve at 32.5 cents. The maximum high for our investors in two short weeks was 71%, and as of Christmas Eve it was still up 48%.

On the other side of the border, China Architectural Engineering Inc. (Nasdaq:CAEI) emerged as the champion of the U.S. stocks on which we kept an eye, but not without a roller-coaster kind of month, in which it started out at $1.08 on November 27th, ballooning to as much as $1.37 a share on Dec. 10th and 11th, but then settling to a close of $1.13 on Christmas Eve, gaining 9.7% on the month, with a maximum percentage gain of 27%. CAEI purports to be the leader in the design, engineering, fabrication and installation of high-end curtain wall systems, roofing systems, steel construction systems, and eco-energy systems.

The Canadian side clearly performed better in December, but we look forward to the “January” effect on stocks to see which side will have the best monthly performer next month. One last note about the penny stocks to watch, there will not be any posted for the week of December 28th to January 1st. The stocks to watch will commence the following week, or the first week of the next decade.

Over the month, the S&P/TSX Composite Index closed Christmas Eve at 11,745.61, enjoying a gain of 247.55, or 2.2%, while the Venture Exchange’s finish at 1,469.86 the night before Christmas placed it 54.80 points above where it started the month, or 3.9% higher.

The Dow Jones Industrials, once again, closed Christmas Eve at 10,520.10, 175.26 better than its Nov.30 close, or 1.7%. The S&P 500 index closed Dec. 24 at 1,126.48, more than 30 points higher than Nov. 30, or 2.8%, while the Nasdaq’s climb to 2,285.69 put it 141.09 points higher than the end of November, or 6.6%.

Have a safe and Happy New Year, and AllPennyStocks.com looks forward to informing you every step of the way through 2010.