Brazilian mining concern Vale (RIO: sentiment, chart, options) reported a 56% drop in first-quarter net income, with weakness in the dollar offsetting record-high exports of iron ore and aluminum. RIO raked in a profit of 2.25 billion reals ($1.4 billion), or 0.47 reals (28 cents) per share. Revenue fell 13% to 14.5 billion reals ($8.8 billion). Iron ore exports increased by 15% to 84 U.S. tons, with aluminum exports rising to 150,000 U.S. tons, setting a new company record for each.

RIO shares are holding close to breakeven in U.S. trading today. The stock's long-term uptrend remains in place, with the shares enjoying support from their 10-week, 20-week, and 50-week moving averages. This trendline trio has underlined RIO's ascent since late 2006.

Option traders were highly skeptical heading into the report. RIO's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio of 1.17 marks an annual bearish peak for the indicator. In today's session, the May 40 and June 35 RIO calls have traded similar volume of 5,441 and 5,448 contracts, respectively. Put options are seeing less activity, with the most active contract the May 35 experiencing volume of 4,433 contracts at last check. Currently, RIO shares are pennies higher at $37.42.