Shares in Games Workshop rose 2% to 18,100p in early trading on Wednesday after Jefferies backed the miniatures maker's latest dividend and its confirmation that trading remains on track.
The FTSE 100 company, best known for its Warhammer battle figures, has declared another ad-hoc dividend of 70p, taking the total since its May year-end to 300p.
Analyst Andrew Wade noted that it was a third higher than the 225p paid at the same stage last year.
He cautioned that part of the step-up reflects the timing of these one-off payouts, given last year's full-year dividend was 35p lower than the year before.
Even stripping that out, though, Wade said the underlying progress amounted to comfortable double-digit growth.
The company also told investors that trading in the year to 30 August was in line with the board's expectations, echoing the language used a year earlier.
Wade read little into the wording beyond a useful signal on the group's biggest launch of the year.
The June release of the 11th edition of Warhammer 40,000, the company's flagship tabletop game, appears not to have fallen materially short of expectations, a conclusion he said chimed with Jefferies' own checks across sales channels.
Neither development was a showstopper, in the broker's view, but the higher dividend and the tacit reassurance on 40,000 both counted as marginal positives.
Jefferies kept its buy rating and a price target of 22,150p, implying upside of about 25% from Tuesday's close.
With the shares having drifted back in recent weeks, Wade said there was scope for them to move ahead.
Games Workshop has been one of the standout performers on the London market in recent years, promoted to the FTSE 100 as demand for its hobby products and lucrative licensing deals has grown.
The stock trades well below the 52-week high of 23,540p reached earlier in the year.
