A day after rival Visa (V) stepped into the earnings spotlight, MasterCard (MA: sentiment, chart, options) took its turn this morning. The credit-card titan reported first-quarter net income of $446.9 million, or $3.38 per share, more than doubling from last year's profit of $214.9 million, or $1.57 per share. Excluding one-time items, net income docked at $398 million, or $3.01 per share. Revenue for the quarter came in at $1.18 billion, up 29% from last year's numbers of $915.1 million. Analysts on average predicted earnings of $2 per share on revenue of $1.07 billion.

The firm attributed a portion of the revenue increase to currency fluctuations, with the euro and the Brazilian real volatile in relation to the U.S. dollar.

Technically speaking, the shares of MA have battled uphill for nearly 2 years, with short-term pullbacks caught by their 40-week moving average. The stock has virtually quintupled since trading near the 40 level in 2006, and is currently hovering near the $261.70.

Ahead of today's earnings report, short sellers seemed to be rather skeptical. Short interest currently accounts for more than 9.5% of MA's available float. Should today's earnings news translate into a rally, short sellers may be forced into buying back their bearish bets, potentially sparking a short-covering rally.

Meanwhile, options players were fairly pessimistic heading into today, too. The stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio of 0.88 ranks in the 69th annual percentile. In other words, near-term option players have been more bearishly aligned only 31% of the past 52 weeks.