SINGAPORE, Feb 17 Reuters The dollar surged on Friday to hit a sixweek high against a basket of currencies as a bout of resilient economic data out of the United States raised market expectations that more interest rate hikes were in the offing.

Data on Thursday showed that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, while other data revealed that monthly producer prices increased by the most in seven months in January.

The latest data releases gave the U.S. dollar a leg up, knocking sterling, the euro and the Japanese yen to fresh sixweek lows on Friday.

That pushed the U.S. dollar index to a sixweek top of 104.44. It was last 0.28 higher at 104.40, and was on track for a third straight week of gains.

The euro was last 0.34 lower at 1.0635, having bottomed at 1.0632 earlier in the session, while sterling slid 0.32 to 1.1949.

Similarly, the kiwi tumbled to a sixweek trough of 0.6216, and likewise for the Aussie , which plunged more than 0.6 to 0.68325, its lowest level since Jan. 6.

The U.S. economy, from recent data, shows that it39;s still healthy. It doesn39;t seem to be going into a recession any time soon, said Tina Teng, market analyst at CMC Markets.

The markets are pricing for higherforlonger rates.

Thursday39;s reports followed data from earlier this week that showed robust growth in U.S. retail sales in January and signs of sticky inflation, stoking fears that the Federal Reserve would have to raise…