A new segment was introduced on Monday’s PreMarket Prep Plus broadcast: “Briefing With Brent.” Brent Slava has been the head of the Benzinga Pro newsdesk since 2013 and has helped investors big and small navigate the financial markets through their ups and downs.

In his role, Brent has to decipher the news flow — and as one can imagine, all the market news that is distributed to the public through a multitude of sources is not put out with everyone’s best intentions in mind.

During Monday’s segment, my favorite indicator, the S&P 500 index futures, were repelling from their premarket highs. When posed the question of what may be instigated the retreat, Brent was spot-on in his analysis.

Although he could not identify one specific catalyst for the “leak” in the stock index futures heading into the open, he summed up the mood heading into Monday’s session this way.

“Ahead of a big earnings week, and this is the week [in terms of the number of companies reporting], traders are reticent put their bets on early,” he told PreMarket Prep Plus.

“Perhaps investors will wait until later in the week, perhaps Tuesday or Wednesday, when more information is available.”

Also, Brent commented on meme stock mania. In his opinion, the institutions are getting very adept at anticipating where the “fast” money may be moving to and actually getting in ahead of the retail crowd.

The entire interview with Brent from Monday’s broadcast can be found here:

More information on the PreMarket Prep Plus broadcast can be found here.

Benzinga's Brent Slava. Photo by Dustin Blitchok.