Usually, the negative sign is placed in front of the fraction, but you will sometimes see a fraction with a negative numerator or denominator. When the numerator and denominator have different signs, ...Usually, the negative sign is placed in front of the fraction, but you will sometimes see a fraction with a negative numerator or denominator. When the numerator and denominator have different signs, the quotient is negative. If both the numerator and denominator are negative, then the fraction is positive because we are dividing a negative by a negative. Fraction bars act as grouping symbols. The expressions above and below the fraction bar should be treated as if they were in parentheses.