Baidu.com (BIDU: sentiment, chart, options) announced that its first-quarter income skyrocketed 72% to RMB146.6 million, or $20.9 million, from RMB85.5 million as revenue more than doubled. On a per-share basis, earnings increased to 61 cents. Excluding items, earnings increased to 68 cents per share, while revenue jumped to RMB574.4 million, or $81.9 million, from RMB274.7 million. The consensus estimate was for a profit of 60 cents per share and revenue of $75.4 million. Digging deeper into the report, traffic acquisition costs were RMB76.6 million, or $10.9 million, representing 13% of total revenue.

Looking ahead, BIDU expects second-quarter revenue of $111 million to $114 million, well above the consensus estimate for second-quarter revenue of $100.6 million.

The shares of BIDU are definitely on the mend. Since tagging a March low of $201.15, the stock has rallied an impressive 70%. The stock pulled back 2% on Thursday, but is up 5% in early trading this morning.

Not surprisingly, investors are optimistic toward BIDU. The Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio for BIDU stands at 0.72, which is lower than 80% of the readings taken during the past 52 weeks. In other words, short-term options speculators have been more optimistically aligned toward BIDU only 20% of the time during the past year.