The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.32%) was up 25 points as of 11:45 a.m. EDT. AT&T (T -0.06%) was one of the index's biggest laggards, while shares of DIRECTV (DTV.DL) also moved lower. Shares of Google (GOOG -0.75%) rose 1.3%.

Dallas Fed Head to speak
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher will speak in Dallas on a panel about the role of the Federal Reserve. Over the years, Fisher has been a noted hawk, playing down the gains that come from further Fed-fueled stimulus and warning about the potential for inflation.

Fisher is a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, so any comments he makes regarding the Fed's role could move the Dow Jones later in Monday's session. 

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

AT&T agrees to buy DIRECTV
AT&T and DIRECTV on Sunday announced a merger agreement under which the telecom giant will pay $95 per share for the pay-TV provider. Shares of DIRECTV were down more than 1% in late-morning trading, suggesting the deal may not be as good as some shareholders had hoped.

AT&T's near-1% tumble might be because the company will have to pay more than $67 billion for DIRECTV, including its debts. AT&T gets a business that is generating cash flow, but there are obvious doubts about the long-term viability of DIRECTV's pay-TV model.

Still, the combined entity does have some obvious synergies. AT&T has only a few million subscribers to its U-verse pay-TV program. DIRECTV has no major Internet offering, or for that matter, phone service -- wireless or otherwise. As one entity, AT&T/DirecTV could offer subscribers a bundle of services: pay TV, phone, and high-speed broadband Internet.

AT&T could also use DIRECTV's deals with content providers to stream content over Internet-connected devices such as smartphones and tablets, and DIRECTV's services could be sold through AT&T's large network of retail stores.

Federal regulators could still block the deal, but as U-verse remains a relatively small player in the larger pay TV landscape, it would be surprising if the deal faces a major struggle.

Google's YouTube said to plan Twitch buy
Google, meanwhile, could also be planning an acquisition -- the search giant's YouTube unit is said to be mulling a $1 billion deal to acquire Twitch, an upstart streaming service.

Twitch, like YouTube, is focused on providing user-created Internet video, but is not truly a competitor. Twitch's service focuses entirely on streaming live video game matches, and is integrated with the newest consoles (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) to allow players to easily upload videos of themselves playing games to the Internet.

Buying Twitch would be a big bet on the future of online video gaming, but given its impressive traffic figures (which at times surpass the largest social networking sites) it might not be a bad deal for the search giant.