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A Handmade challenge to Etsy

Here are the numbers we're reading and watching for Friday.

6

That’s how many reaction emojis are being tested on Facebook in Spain and Ireland. It’s a big move for the social network, which previously only offered the famous “like” button. As Bloomberg writes, the team behind the new emojis — love, haha, yay, wow, sad and angry — consulted academic sociologists to get the right range of human reactions.

$556,000

That’s how much the New York Mets’ starting pitcher, Jacob deGrom, earns. That’s relatively low when you consider that the Dodgers’ starter Clayton Kershaw earned around $31 million. Hiring young talent that hasn’t reached the six years of play required to get free agency (and more money) is part of a strategy for the Mets that appears to be working: The team is in the playoffs Friday night for the first time in several years.

5,000 sellers

That’s how many have been invited to sell on Handmade at Amazon, the company’s new service that aims to compete with Etsy. As the BBC writes, the service charges businesses a 12 percent sales fee, compared with the 3.5 percent taken by Etsy.

42 percent

In a survey by Gallup, that’s how many consumers said they feel “somewhat positive” about the auto industry. That’s in addition to the 7 percent who said they feel “very positive,” which places the auto industry relatively high in the esteem of consumers. Even with the amount of scandals concerning the auto industry of late, with consumer sentiment remaining basically unchanged, regulators are unlikely to push for more stringent rules.

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