Place your bets on DreamWorks sale

DreamWorks Animation looks like an obvious acquisition target, according to Merrill Lynch's Jessica Reif Cohen, who spoke to the Reuters Media Summit in New York this morning. Cohen expects the media sector to be dominated by just a handful of companies, which means more dealmaking for the smaller fry like Glendale-based DreamWorks and El Segundo-based DirecTV. (A DreamWorks acquisition would make sense for lots of reasons - not the least of which is the fact that the company produces a grand total of two movies each year.) Cohen, who is arguably the most respected media analyst on Wall Street, sees Verizon, AT&T, Viacom and CBS as among the companies looking to buy other companies. For what it's worth, DreamWorks was down 3.67 percent just before the bell, while DirecTV was down just 0.53 percent. Keep in mind that the market took a big hit today, with the Dow down 140 points at that count.