By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Wednesday as Wall Street looked to shift focus away from tensions on the Korean peninsula and European debt worries to a batch of U.S. economic data.
* U.S. stocks sank Tuesday as investors dumped risky assets after North Korea rained artillery shells on a South Korean island and as Ireland's teetering government tried to come up with a program to fix its catastrophic banking crisis and meet terms of an international bailout.
* "The market was caught off guard yesterday by the North and South Korea skirmish. It did happen in an abbreviated holiday week, and that gave a lot of traders an excuse to perhaps lighten up on their positions," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners in New York.
* "We will probably see the market try to stabilize today and basically try to trade off the economic numbers and the market movers will be consumer spending, consumer sentiment and personal income."
* Economic indicators will include weekly jobless claims and October durable goods orders as well as personal income and consumption, all at 8:30 a.m. EST.
* At 9:55 a.m. EST, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final November consumer sentiment index is due. New home sales for October are to be reported at 10 a.m. EST.
* S&P 500 futures gained 3.7 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 11 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 3.75 points.
* Oracle Corp was up 1.9 percent to $27.70 in premarket trade after Germany's SAP AG was ordered to pay Oracle $1.3 billion for software theft.
* Deere & Co was up 0.1 percent to $76.41 premarket after the world's largest maker of farm equipment after it reported stronger-than-expected quarterly profit and forecast 2011 earnings below expectations.
* Upscale jeweler Tiffany & Co posted third-quarter profit and sales that handily beat estimates and said it expects strong holiday sales. Its shares were up 2.5 percent to $59.71.
* European shares were 0.6 percent higher at midday on Wednesday, boosted by strong German business sentiment data, though trading was choppy as concerns lingered over the Ireland and Korean situations.