Less than six months on from the collapse of its merger talks with Glencore, Rio Tinto has a hint of its old strut back.Its production is rising in all the right places. It just announced the biggest dividend in four years. And the short sellers who swarmed the stock in recent months, making Rio one of the 20 most shorted companies on the ASX, are suddenly on the run, with the miner’s June half earnings sending its shares up almost 5 per cent on Wednesday.Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fetching latest articles