The Most Important Numbers to Know Today  – Money Morning

200 Democrats and 19 Republicans support passing a continuing resolution with no strings attached to re-open government, according to a CNN poll of Congress. With three vacancies among 435 Congressmen, 217 votes is the minimum required to pass the measure. Senate claims it’s close to a deal, but the question is how House Republicans will react – as the shutdown continues into its fifteenth day.

700% surges were seen in TWTR earlier this month. The zombie stock represents shares of home audio store Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, now traded on the pink sheets, but a one-time strip mall staple of the suburban bass head set. Tweeter went bankrupt in 2007, and shut its doors nationwide through 2008.  But, some overeager investors mistook TWTR to be the hotly-anticipated shares of Twitter, Inc. The stock, which had been trading around one-hundredth of a penny, shot up to nearly $0.05, amid the heaviest volume in seven years. FINRA has since changed the ticker symbol to THEGQ, and shares have settled back down in sub-penny territory. There’s no need to worry about picking up shares of Southern gourmet supermarket Harris Teeter, either. Those shares were subsumed by Kroger earlier this summer. As for what to do about Twitter stock – take a look…

26,000 bitcoins belonging to William Ross Ulbricht, a.k.a. Dread Pirate Roberts, were seized by the FBI earlier this month. At today’s exchange rate, the stash of crypto-currency is worth about $3.65 million. The seizures coincided with the shutdown of the Silk Road, an online, Deep Internet marketplace where drugs and other illegal items were openly bought and sold, with users relying on an escrow system and reputation monitoring for security. Called “the e-Bay of drugs,” the site took a share of each transaction, all traded in bitcoin. It is thought that the anarcho-libertarian venture netted Ulbricht about $80 million over the years. One problem facing the FBI? How to get 26,000 bitcoins into the books.

2,000 small-cap stocks, the Russell 2000, are absolutely stomping the big-caps on the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones. The small-cap S&P 600 is thrashing its big brothers on the S&P 500 by 12% so far this year. With a median market cap of just $650 million, these companies pack an outsize punch for portfolios. And they’ve been punching for decades, bringing in average returns of 3% more than big-caps since 1927. Small-caps can be volatile, to be sure, but if you know the signs, you can predict precisely when they’ll take a rocket ride.

25 to 36 countries make up the “Frontier markets.” Countries beyond what would be considered emerging markets, countries like Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Ghana, or Romania. The MSCI Frontier Markets Index, which indexes growth in 32 countries, is up over 15% for the year, compared with just over 1% on the Emerging Markets Index. There are even some frontier market ETFs for those looking to profit a bit closer to home.

16 tons and what do you get? The 630,000 square foot expanse of “Anton Menlo,” a $120 million, 394-unit community dreamed up by Facebook. The complex will be within very short commuting distance of Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters. This is, in essence, a rebirth of the old “company town” phenomenon – albeit with far better perks, 99.8% less coal dust, and 467% more iPads. The Bay Area is in the grips of a housing shortage, as the explosive growth of tech companies brings with it a tsunami of new residents, most with money to burn. The “Anton Menlo” complex has the capacity to house 10% of Facebook’s workers.