Variable > or < 0

Hello,
I want to print ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ if {variation} placeholder is > or <0.

In a WordPress post with PHP Exec enabled, I tried the following code:

`[jsoncontentimporter url=”https://www……&#8221; numberofdisplayeditems=”300″ ]

<?php
$var='{variation}’;
echo $var; // OK – it gets correctly printed.

if ($var<0) {
echo ‘negative’;
}
else {
echo ‘positive’; // BAD – It always prints ‘positive’ even if variation equals -35.
}

[/jsoncontentimporter]’