Aussie Below Parity with Greenback

The Australian dollar dropped below the parity level with its US counterpart as signs of slower manufacturing in China and falling stocks weakened demand for Australia’s currency. The HSBC preliminary manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index dropped to 49.4 in September from 49.9 in August. That’s the lowest level in two months. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of stocks dropped as much as 4.1 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 4.2 percent. AUD/USD dropped from 1.0043 to 0.9774 as of 15:50 GMT today after reaching the daily low of 0.9735.