title: Python convert string to float error with negative numbers
body: <p>How to convert a negative number stored as string to a float?</p>
  
  <p>Am getting this error on Python 3.6 and don't know how to get over it.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; s = '–1123.04'
  &gt;&gt;&gt; float(s)
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "&lt;stdin&gt;", line 1, in &lt;module&gt;
  ValueError: could not convert string to float: '–1123.04'
  </code></pre>