Stock index futures dipped on Wednesday after a warning for Spain about its credit rating, rekindling fears about euro-zone debt.

Credit rating agency Moody's said it could downgrade Spain's debt and that it was concerned about the country's high funding needs. For details, see [ID:nLDE6BE110]

The market has been tackling the euro-zone issue since April, and we all know that these countries are more credit-worthy than what these ratings say, said Jack DeGan, chief investment officer at Harbor Advisory Corp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

But with the S&P already up so much and the latest outlook from the Fed, we just don't have a catalyst to move the market higher this morning.

S&P 500 futures were down 3.5 points and slightly 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 fell 19 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 7 points.

Wall Street ended mostly flat on Tuesday on a late-day sell-off after another cautious assessment on the strength of the economy from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

U.S. economic data due later includes the November consumer price index at 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT). Economists in a Reuters survey expect a 0.2 percent month-over-month rise, unchanged from October.

The New York Federal Reserve will release its Empire State Manufacturing Survey for December, also at 8:30 a.m.

The Fed releases industrial production and capacity utilization data for November at 9:15 a.m. (1415 GMT). Economists are expecting a 0.3 percent rise in production from the prior month and a reading of 75.0 percent for capacity utilization.

Novartis AG has wrapped up its long-awaited buyout of the remainder of U.S.-listed Alcon Inc it didn't own.

Printer and computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co won a $1.4 billion contract from German utility E.ON .

Anadarko Petroleum Corp said continuous flow of oil from the Jubilee field, offshore Ghana would start Wednesday, with production ramping up over the next three to six months.

McDonald's Corp plans to double the number of its restaurants in China to 2,000 by 2013, a senior executive said.

(Editing by Padraic Cassidy)

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