ada56,
To be perfectly honest...I don't believe this has anything to do with any malware infestation on your computer.
This is what's happening in your hotmail account:
The original sender of this email is a "spammer" sending out info about stock alerts. You can verify this from the "From:" field in the original email header. However, the sender has changed the reply to email address to point to your hotmail account, so when you reply to it...you are receiving the reply. It's not a problem with your machine, but the way the original email was configured when it was sent to you.
I could go on about email headers, however, the best thing to do would be to just block the sender of the original email in the Mail preferences of your hotmail account.
Whatever you do...never...I mean NEVER...reply to an email if you don't know who it's from. If you do, they got your email address and then sell it to other companies who, in turn, will start spamming you as well.
So...you may want to read the following:
http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers.htmlIt gives you detailed information about e-mail headers...
It may be a little difficult to understand, however, it is good reading. Also, referencing patio's reply...it would also be a good idea to stay on top of your computer's malware protection, but like I said...I don't think this is the issue here. It's just a spam email with the header information changed so that if you reply to the original sender, it gets redirected to your hotmail account.
I hope you found this info useful...
