July 16 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes opened

higher on Wednesday as investors sifted through new inflation

data and digested a fresh round of heavyweight earnings reports.

At 9:30 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average

rose 156.35 points, or 0.36%, to 44,179.64, the S&P 500

gained 17.45 points, or 0.28%, to 6,261.21 and the Nasdaq

Composite gained 50.34 points, or 0.24%, to 20,728.14.