U.S. stock indexes opened modestly higher Wednesday, putting the Dow on track to build on an earnings-driven rally that has taken it back into positive territory for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 18 points, or less than 0.1%, at 24,804, even as a decline in shares of International Business Machines Corp. down 6.4%, weighed on the blue-chip gauge, with investors expressing the view that the technology giant isn't progressing fast enough in its quest to become more of a cloud/artificial-intelligence company following its first-quarter results late-Tuesday. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index gained 0.3% at 2,714, and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.2% at 7,295. Market participants are awaiting the Federal Reserve's Beige Book at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, an anecdotal reading of business conditions at the central bank's 12 districts.