Volatility strikes the S&P

Using data downloaded from Yahoo Finance, I looked at the value of the S&P 500 over the last 25 years, from 12/1/1983 to 12/1/2008, and counted the number of days where the index changed by more than +/- 4.0%. Here are the results (years not listed had zero occurences):

1986 1
1987 7
1988 2
1989 1
1997 2
1998 3
2000 2
2001 4
2002 6
2008 27

Quite a jump in 2008! And 26 of those 27 moves came in the 3rd and 4th quarters of the year. This is a crude measure of volatility compared to something like the standard deviation of returns or the VIX, but certainly one that individual investors can easily identify with. And we still have a month to go...