Axios

The NYT Dealbook details the sobering letter Seth Klarman recently wrote to investors cautioning against overconfidence in the stock market. Klarman, runs the $30 billion Baupost Group, has been compared to Warren Buffett (and actually has received praise from Buffett) and has only lost money in three of the past 34 years.

• On the markets: Klarman anticipates a "lengthy decline in dollar hegemony, a rapid rise in interest rates and inflation, and global angst."
• On protectionism: He said "America-first protectionism" will "leave society worse off" and that investors are being blinded by the "potential benefits of stimulative tax cuts" when they know adding barriers to trade is not a path to growth.
• On Trump's tax cuts: He said "The Trump tax cuts could drive government deficits considerably higher" and said they will harken back to the 2001 tax cuts that "fueled income inequality while triggering huge federal budget deficits." Klarman added that even without Trump's tax cuts, government debt will "skyrocket" when interest rates are raised.

Klarman's advice: Hedge fund managers should stop investing in funds that track the market — like index funds and exchange traded funds (E.T.F.s) — as it's depressing their returns. Hedge funds only returned 23% from 2010 to 2015, compared to the 108% returns for the Standard & Poor's index.

The price of insuring $10 million of Sears bonds for five years just rose to a record $4.6 million annually last week, up from $3.3 million in September, per the WSJ.

Quick take: Insurers are smelling a bad deal with Sears, and today shares fell 5.23%.

Data: Money.net

Russia wants an apology from Fox News after Bill O'Reilly's "unacceptable" comments labeling Russian President Putin as a "killer" in his interview with Trump.

We consider such words from the Fox TV company to be unacceptable and insulting, and honestly speaking, we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company—Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on a conference call with reporters.

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse responded to the Kremlin's request on Twitter: "In America, we have a free press. So Putin can only make a request of @OReillyFactor. In Russia, he'd just consider taking him out."

Vizio, one of the world's largest makers of smart TVs, is agreeing to pay a $2.2 million fine to settle charges brought by the FTC and New Jersey Attorney General for collecting viewing data on 11 million TVs without their knowledge. As part of the settlement, Vizio must obtain consent for collecting and sharing data and implement a privacy program, according to the FTC.

Why it matters: As more devices are connected to the Internet and each other, electronics makers are able to collect an enormous amount of data about users, from TV-watching habits to a variety of specific activities taking place on a consumer's home network. Some TVs have even been found to be recording living room conversations. That data can then be combined with demographic data, such as age and income, to form a fairly detailed view of a customer. In this case, Vizio allegedly sold information to third parties to, for example, target ads to people across multiple devices, according to the complaint. In other words, pay attention to those privacy policies when you buy new devices.