By David McMahon

NEW YORK, June 19 (Reuters) - The dollar rose across the board on Monday as investors focused on the prospect of higher U.S. interest rates on the back of recent U.S. economic data and Federal Reserve officials’ warnings on inflation.

The dollar posted strong gains against European currencies, touching a six-week high against the Swiss franc, supported by expectations that the Fed will raise interest rates this month and maybe again in August, before the Labor Day three-dayweekend.

“Interest rate differentials are moving more in favor of the dollar, and that’s giving it a little bit of support,” said John McCarthy, director of foreign exchange trading at ING Capital Markets.

“That said, we’re still stuck in the broad ranges of $1.25 to $1.27 (for euro/dollar) and I don’t see us breaking out of that for a while.”

With little major U.S. economic data due this week, and many market players with one eye on their televisions watching the World Cup, traders said that activity was unusually thin.

Earlier, the yen also fell to eight-year troughs against sterling and the Swiss franc on concern about a North Korean missile test and cooling expectations that the Bank of Japan will raise interest rates from zero as early as July.

But the yen later reversed those losses to be up on the day against most major currencies apart from the dollar. Traders said there was little fundamental behind the pullback.

With little U.S. economic data this week apart from May housing starts and durable goods orders, analysts said the market’s focus was squarely on the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting on June 28-29.

(From Reuters)