The shares of oil giant Exxon Mobil (XOM: sentiment, chart, options) are weighing heavily on the Dow Jones Industrial Average today. During the second quarter, Exxon set a record for the biggest quarterly profit by a U.S. corporation, but the results still fell short of analysts' expectations. The company banked a profit of $2.22 per share, or $11.68 billion, while revenue climbed 40% to $138.1 billion. Barring an after-tax charge of $290 million from an Exxon Valdez court settlement, net income totaled $11.97 billion, or $2.27 per share. Analysts were expecting a per-share profit of $2.52 on $144 billion in revenue.

Earnings at Exxon's exploration and production business rose by 68% to $10.01 billion, boosted by record-high prices for crude oil. On the other hand, earnings from the refining and marketing arm dropped 54% to $1.55 billion, as gasoline prices failed to keep pace with the quick surge in crude costs.

Heading into the report, option traders were bullishly aligned. The International Securities Exchange reports that nearly 2 calls have been bought to open on XOM for every 1 put during the past 10 days. In the August series, peak call open interest of 34,154 contracts resides at the out-of-the-money 85 strike.

In today's trading, some of this optimism seems to be unwinding against the stock. XOM is down more than 3%, extending its year-to-date slump of 10%. The equity's 10-week and 20-week moving averages recently completed a bearish cross, which suggests that further downside could be in store during the near term.

As for the broader Dow Jones Industrial Average, it last traded at 11,475, a loss of 108 points. The blue-chip barometer is struggling not just because of Exxon's earnings miss, but also due to some bleak news about the GDP.