(Google Finance)
Stocks are climbing after an open in the red on Friday morning.
Near 12:12 p.m. ET, the Dow was up 58 points, the S&P 500 was up 4 points, and the Nasdaq was up 3 points.
On Thursday, stocks rallied in the final minutes of trading and closed slightly higher, with the Dow closing up 76 points. Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid noted that volume on the S&P 500 was lighter than usual, and the late-day rally was supported by tech stocks.
But again, the market action reflected the volatility and uncertainty that's plagued the stock market of late, and ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest rate announcement next week.
This is something that Fundstrat's Tom Lee highlights in his note to clients today. "Indecision and uncertainty", as well as a lack of confidence, characterize the sentiment of stock investors at the moment, he wrote.
There's a big new call on crude oil this morning: Goldman sees prices falling near $20 per barrel, and expects the oversupply in the oil market to persist into 2016.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell more than 3% to as low as $44.53 per barrel in New York on Friday morning. The energy sector was the biggest decliner on the S&P 500, down more than 2%.
In economic data, we learned that producer prices were flat in August. The Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand was flat month-on-month, and fell 0.8% year-on-year.
And, the University of Michigan's preliminary reading of consumer confidence in September fell to 85.7 from 91.9 in August, reflecting sentiment about the decline in stocks last month.
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