Miles Electric Vehicles, a U.S. manufacturer of low-speed, all-electric cars that were used by the U.S. Navy, the National Park Service and various universities including Yale, Stanford and UCLA, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday. Entrepreneur and philanthropist Miles Rubin founded the company in 2004 with the mission to “rapidly develop advanced all-electric vehicles to meet the needs of organizations and everyday drivers, while using no gas and producing zero tailpipe emissions.” According to Reuters, Miles Electric has “estimated assets in the range of $10 million to $50 million, and estimated liabilities of between $50 million and $100 million.”

Tesla (TSLA) has become the household name in the electric car market but industry stalwarts like General Motors (GM), Nissan (NSANY) and Ford (F) have poured millions of dollars into developing an all-electric vehicle that has broad appeal. Tesla has succeeded where others have not because of one “brilliant” move, says

When PIMCO’s Bill Gross declared last month that “the secular 30-year bull market in bonds likely ended” on April 29, it was the shot heard around the fixed-income world.

But many people wrongly assumed that dramatic declaration meant Gross was turning outright bearish on bonds. As the manager of the $293 billion Total Return Bond Fund explains in the accompanying video, that isn’t necessarily the case.

“Investors should look at the yield on at 10-year…and see whether that legitimately in this environment provides some type of return,” Gross tells me. “Six weeks ago at 1.6% [the 10-year yield] was more than skinny. Where we are now, [over] 50 basis points higher, is a much better situation than where we were then.”

In other words, price matters, and the recent drop on Treasury prices – which move in opposition to yields – has made Gross a buyer again, at least in recent weeks as the yield moved above 2% to this morning’s 14-month high of 2.27%.

This is a “decent environment to earn

Last fall nine million households on the East Coast lost power because of Superstorm Sandy, according to the U.S. Energy Department. And many of those households suffered outages lasting days or weeks rather than hours.

On Tuesday the New York City Mayor's office was set to offer proposals to protect the city from future storms. Its study will reportedly forecast that one-quarter of the city could be living in a flood zone by 2050.

Weather, especially extreme weather, is clearly a threat to the U.S. power grid. But John Licata, a former energy trader who now heads the energy research firm Blue Phoenix, tells The Daily Ticker, “Weather is not our only issue….cyber security [problems] could be more widespread than any storm this country has ever seen.”

He explains: “The fact that nuclear facilities can be targeted [and] water facilities can be targeted has a huge implication for the energy space.” In addition, says Licata, “a lot more companies are using the cloud to store data” which

The first meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese’s President Xi Jinping was supposed to be a relatively relaxed get together for the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies. Both leaders reportedly wanted to set the foundation for a stable, productive relationship as they relaxed at the 200-acre Sunnylands estate in Palm Springs, California.

President Obama specifically hoped to press Xi on the issue of cybersecurity. Chinese hackers reportedly have attacked The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Google, Intel, Adobe Systems, Apple, Twitter, Facebook and the Federal Reserve.

And the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property reports that U.S. companies lose more than $300 billion every year to intellectual property theft and China is responsible for 50% to 80% of that, often through hacking.

Related: Cadillac, China Helping GM to Get Its Groove Back

But the best laid plans often go awry, as the saying goes.

More specifically, revelations that

Bill Gross, the founder and co-CIO of PIMCO, does not envy Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Hawkish members of the central bank are publicly suggesting an exit from the Fed’s three-year stimulus program, also known as quantitative easing. Bernanke and Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen are expressing more caution and have indicated that the bank’s $85 billion monthly bond-buying program will continue until the U.S. economy can stand on two legs or the national unemployment rate hits 6.5% (the rate ticked up a tenth of a percentage point to 7.6% in May).

Related: Economist: Labor Market Just Not That ‘Healthy’, Beware the Lost Generation

“It is a conundrum,” Gross tells The Daily Ticker. “He’s in a corner as are all central banks. We have sympathy.”

“Sympathy” for Bernanke does not equal support; Gross has been critical of the Fed’s QE program. He writes in his latest investment outlook:

“Our global financial system at the zero-bound is beginning to resemble a leukemia patient with New Age

Is Apple's (AAPL) new music streaming service really a Pandora-killer (P)?

Ahead of today's Worldwide Developers Conference, The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget tells Aaron Task that this service could turn out to be a bit of a dud. "What are we gonna get? We're supposed to get a radio service, a new Pandora, it's been in the works for years, you gotta be kinda bored about that. Everybody likes Pandora, it's already pretty good, so what's gonna be different?"

Related: Apple Needs to Shock and Amaze Once More

A so-so success, or even a failure could mean trouble for Apple. The stock has fallen 23% in the last year. It clearly needs a hit. Speaking of which, what ever happened to Apple TV?

They year-long delay can be blamed on reports that "they've had trouble getting the content deals done," says Blodget. "There was a real hiccup at Apple. If you look at Apple's product rollouts they are in the middle of the longest drought that anybody can remember..." Maybe we'll see Apple TV by the end

By Rick Newman

The billion-dollar question on Wall Street is this: When will the Federal Reserve begin to rein in the aggressive monetary stimulus program known as “quantitative easing?”

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke got the guessing game started on May 22 when he told a Congressional committee the Fed could begin to scale back QE “in the next few meetings” if the economy continues to improve. Bernanke seemed to be saying the Fed could begin to roll back QE by the end of 2013, even though many investors had been expecting the program to remain at full strength until sometime in 2014.

The uncertainty caused by Bernanke’s remarks triggered a modest stock selloff, with interest rates on the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond rising about half-a-percentage point during the past month. Under QE, the Fed purchases about $85 billion worth of Treasury securities and other bonds each month, which pushes interest rates down (the Fed is basically reducing the supply of bonds, allowing those who issue

The NFL is a $10 billion business. That's bigger than Burger King (BKW) and US Airways (LCC) combined.

And like any business, the NFL is always looking for new growth opportunities. One idea that seems to be gaining steam: an 18-game season, which could boost revenues by $500 million. The de-facto CEO of the league, commissioner Roger Goodell, said last month that a proposal to expand the season is "on the table." The Players Union is generally against adding games, in part because of wear and tear on its players. And that's where the concussion issue comes into the equation. More games mean more injuries. According to the @NFLConcussions Twitter feed, 240 concussions were disclosed by players and teams last season. So how does Goodell balance these two issues: player safety and profits?

Related: Blues' McDonald retires due to concussions

Former NFL quarterback Dan Marino tells The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task there's a fine line between protecting the players from concussions, and