Classify the given a piece of financial news into three classes: positive, negative, and neutral. Output must be 'positive', 'negative', or 'neutral'.
One example: According to Gran , the company has no plans to move all production to Russia , although that is where the company is growing .
Solution is here: neutral
Explanation: Although the author uses negative words like 'no' in the news, there is no evidence of the news being positive or negative for any stakeholder. Hence, the output should be neutral and the classification is correct.

Now, solve this: Performance in the second half of 2009 exceeded expectations .
Solution:
positive