MarketFilter: Got any advice for trading Futures? Help a newbie! I've entered the BP trading game . which is a virtual futures trading game for university students. According to their site, I'll be able to trade live futures prices for ICE Brent Futures and ICE Gasoil Futures over a period of a few weeks. I've got some idea what to look for when trading stocks (PEs and other bits of fundamental analysis), but have never traded futures before. Have any of you guys got any advice?

Recommend any financial crisis blogs written by people who are following all the relevant indicators, or by people involved in the finance industry, who are trying to make sense of the market and economy?

My ex-employer is claiming I was overpaid, and is asking for the money back - what should I do? For about four years I worked with a local authority in the UK. 10 months ago I was offered a new job with a private company, so I handed in my notice and left. Yesterday I received a phone call from my bank, saying that I had been overpaid by over £1200, and that they needed to recover that money. I had no idea that this had happened, and as far as I could tell from my remaining paycheques everything was in order. I mean, I didn't sit down and tot up my hours or anything, but it seemed to roughly add up to how much I'd worked.

Where should I keep my money (to protect it from the US economy)? I'm American and it's in US$, but I don't live there and don't have any good reason to keep it there. I don't have that much, but am about to receive an inheritance, which is why this is an issue. Let's say that about half of what I receive will be in either cash or liquid assets, and half will be in Beneficial IRAs (the amounts are significant to me, but probably wouldn't make an international financial planner/accountant blink). We all know about the US economy. The relative value of the dollar is decreasing, we can count on some inflation, the stock market, etc. etc. I plan on either investing or saving most of my money, but I am unlikely to ever use it in the US (I'm actually thinking about buying a flat in Europe as an investment right now). I may use a small chunk of it for some traveling/living expenses in the near future, and would generally prefer to have all of it secure but accessible and earning some income.

How can I find out the health of my investment brokerage (like Fidelity.com, E-Trade, etc)? Can brokerages even crash and lose my money like in a bank failure? Much public focus has been placed on having a bank fail and people not getting their money. I know that in the case of banks, the money is covered up to 100,000 of FDIC coverage and there are sites to look up the health of your bank like http://www.bauerfinancial.com which give banks star ratings based on their current financial stability. However, what if you have your money in stocks/mutual funds in a place like Fidelity.com or E-Trade?

How can I keep track of the health of European banks? I've got some of my retirement money spread around in banks in Spain, France, and the UK. I'm looking for indicators that help me understand whether my banks are getting in trouble. Can you give me any Web resources to keep track of which banks are on government watch lists, what the current CDS spreads are, who's got a lot of toxic debt, or any other useful information? Bonus points if you can explain what the indicators mean.

Where to put what's coming to me? I have a lot of money coming to me between now and December. Like, a six-figure lot. My question is: where do I put it? Is it safe to keep it in the bank? (in that case, would it be smarter to spread it out over several banks?) Should I put it all in Treasury bonds and CDs and Triple-A bonds? Or should I just cash the big checks and hide the money in my mattress?

Are there any credit counseling or 3rd party agencies that work with student loan repayments? My husband has a substantial student loan. Health problems hit both of us this year, I'm unable to work, thus we're unable to pay the full $300/month for now and want to lower payments. We have every reason to believe we can go back to $300/month in 12-18 months. His student loan company is terrible, constantly making errors and they employ completely unhelpful customer service people. They say he's ineligible for any more deferments or forbearances and they claim he's on a graded repayment schedule but it made no difference in payment amount. He offered $200/month payments and they hung up on him.

We have some money in a Wamu checking account, and an equity loan. Since the word is that Wamu is teetering , what should we expect to happen to the checking account money and the equity loan? Specifically: * If they get bought up, will we lose anything? * If they simply fail, will we lose anything? * Does it make sense to yank our checking account? * What happens to your loan when your lender folds? (I know you don't get off the hook, I just want to know if there are action i

Mortgages, interest rates, inflation, recession (UK-specific)... what to do? So the discounted period of my mortgage will be up at the end of October, and I'll no longer be tied in. It was a fixed rate mortgage and the interest rate was somewhat lower than I can expect to get with any current offering. My question is this: what is the most likely trend for interest rates over the next couple of years? The Bank of England, from my limited understanding, would like to keep rates steady to control inflation. Elsewhere there seems to be a belief that rates will have to fall significantly over the next year or so.