Teacher:Classify the given a piece of financial news into three classes: positive, negative, and neutral. Output must be 'positive', 'negative', or 'neutral'.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: Lassila & Tikanoja 's operating profit excluding non-recurring and imputed items for the second quarter was EUR11 .3 m , down from EUR13 .8 m a year ago .
Student:
negative