On a down Tuesday for U.S. equities, incumbent telecom stock (NYSE: VZ) managed to land well in positive territory. On speculation that the company is about to raise its already considerable dividend, investors snapped up its shares. This pushed its stock price nearly 3% higher, on a day when the S 500 index was in the red with a more than 2% decline.

That morning, an analyst team at white-shoe investment bank Morgan Stanley opined that Verizon is days away from declaring a dividend raise. The prognosticators said that such an announcement is likely to occur this Thursday, Sept. 5. Morgan Stanley anticipates a $0.05-per-share annual hike to the big telecom's quarterly common stock payout, putting the next quarterly distribution at nearly $0.68 per share.

If realized, such an increase would be in line with Verizon's recent dividend raises. While the company is a frequent lifter, consistently adding to its payout every year, its bumps tend to be small. On a quarterly basis, the most recent one, declared last September, was barely over $0.01 per share.

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Source Fool.com