This is my every April reminder: Don’t forget to make your 2015 Individual Retirement Account contribution.

It can be $5,000 if you are under 50 years of age and $6,500 at 50 and above.

Also remember that you could be one year ahead on your contributions if you want. You can make the 2016 contribution now instead of waiting. Many people chose to do that because it gives you an extra year to earn a return on the money assuming the markets cooperate.

Check with your tax adviser on the details.

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This is more like it, right. There is nothing happening. No days of up 200 and then down 200 in the same day.

The volatility seems to have gone away. As soon as I say that, things will change, of course.

I like a little volatility, especially when it is up volatility. Today, these days of up 23 and down 24 just does not get it.

As I write this on March 29, both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard and Poor’s 500 are basically break even for the year. We had about a 12 percent rally to get to this point. We are now trading around where we were in late 2014.

If you are wondering why you are not making any money, there it is. We go through periods like this where markets just don’t do anything. I doubt that lasts very long, but we have to wait and see.

Normally by now I see some sort of trend developing for the year. Right now I don’t have a clue.

The investment opinions by market gurus are all over the place, although I do have to admit that most of the opinions that I see are negative. Most people I read think the markets are going down.

If you remember in the past, all the pundits have been saying that interest rates are going up. Guess what, short-term interest rates really have not changed since 2009.

What I am telling you that no one has a clue what is going on. If someone is right with their forecasts, it was nothing but a lucky guess. Remember that.

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I have a piece of insignificant information. There are 43 million Americans, that’s 43 million, who have some sort of student debt from attending college. The question is who is going to pay off that debt? Who do you think?

On Friday, April 1, somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million Americans will have been dropped from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. You — and I know that as Food Stamps.

A rule that existed to limit food stamp benefits to 3 months and that had been waived by 22 states has been reinstated.

Here is the problem. Everyone understands that some of those people need help. Maybe the majority of them, I don’t know. It’s that percentage of people who abuse getting them that keeps everyone fired up.

Investors I know look at all kinds of stuff like this.

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On a personal note, Jim Harrison died recently. If you don’t know him, he was one of the most interesting people I have ever seen or heard. I did not know him and did not meet him, but I did see him in an interview on the telly and have read about him. The guy was great.

He was not attractive, had a bad eye, bad teeth, smoked incessantly, drank heavily, was friends with Jack Nicholson, and was known for having once consumed a 37 course lunch.

He was a reveler and a teller of tales. I mean he was my hero most of my life. I just didn’t know it.

If you are interested in authors at all, look him up under “Legends of the Fall,” “Revenge” and “Wolf.”

He wrote poetry, including a poem about a young girl who was gored to death by a bull. He knew her and apparently the story was true.

This was quite a man, and a man I wish I had shared time him.

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Wife came into the man cave the other day while I was snorting. She wanted to know what was so funny.

I told her that I heard a story about a husband who came home early from work surprising his wife who was with another man.

The wife yelled out “Why are you home early?” He said “Who is that man?”

She said, “Don’t try to change the subject!”

She thought that was funny.

Howie Pentony is a Portersville client portfolio manager.