* Dollar touches lows vs Swiss franc, euro, sterling
* Euro tests barriers at $1.5050 but gains short-lived
* Sterling advances on short-covering ahead of Q3 GDP
* Yen falls on crosses as fundamentals return to focus
By Kaori Kaneko
TOKYO, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The dollar ground to its latest low for the year against the euro on Friday as the market took aim at options barriers, while sterling, a laggard in the broad rally against the dollar, rose ahead of UK growth data.
The dollar has been under persistent pressure this year over expectations that U.S. interest rates will remain low for a long time, a view reconfirmed on Thursday by Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans who said policy accommodation was still the top priority.
With that view intact, talk of options triggers up at $1.5050 on euro/dollar encouraged dollar selling, although the fall was not substantial and the euro quickly ran into sales after hitting a 14-month high at $1.5061.
Sterling rose to its highest in a month against the greenback, extending a steep rebound from a five-month low earlier in October as short-term speculators have covered short positions.
One trader said the short-covering looked to be nearly over but had given the pound a bit more upward drive ahead of GDP data due at 0830 GMT, which may show Britain returned to growth between July and September after five quarters of recession.
"After (BOE Governor) King's recent bullish comments, if GDP is good, that will help sterling," said said Kazuyuki Kato, treasury department manager at Mizuho Trust & Banking.
"But the pace of sterling's gains will likely moderate as speculator short-covering nears its end."
The pound rose 0.2 percent on the day to $1.6651, after climbing as high as $1.6679.
Minutes from the Bank of England and comments from its governor Mervyn King have encouraged views that it may not extend its 175 billion pound ($290.8 billion) quantitative easing next month, although another BOE policy maker threw that back into doubt on Thursday.
The euro got a bit of a leg up this week when it crossed a psychological barrier at $1.5000. Traders said the next set of options triggers were thought to lie around $1.5050, which were duly tested and the level broken.
The euro returned to stand flat on the day at $1.5034 but a trader for a Japanese trust bank said the market was already eyeing $1.5100 as the next target, although he said the euro's rise might be gradual.
The dollar also dipped briefly to a 15-month low at 1.0033 Swiss francs but was holding just above a 14-month low against a basket of six major currencies set this week at 74.94.
It was steady on the day at 75.082, although some in the market are not ruling out an eventual fall to a March 2008 low around 70.7.
Since April, the dollar index has lost about 12 percent, with selling picking up in recent weeks as Asian central banks diversified into other currencies, and on growing talk the dollar is becoming the funding currency for leveraged carry trades.
"The U.S. dollar looks vulnerable to a short, brutal move to the spring 2008 lows," said David Watt, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital.
But it rose against the yen, gaining 0.4 percent on the day to 91.66 yen as the Japanese currency was sold against the higher yielding Australian dollar and the British pound. Dealers expected resistance at 91.75 yen and then around 92.30.
Traders said speculative accounts were growing doubtful about Japan's currency, with some building yen-selling positions on domestic issues which did not bode well for the economic outlook, such as a crisis at cash-strapped Japan Airlines and concerns about rising government debt supply.
The Australian dollar was up 0.5 percent at 84.96 yen after hitting a one-year high at 85.02 yen.
The euro rose 0.4 percent to 137.75, touching its highest in two months, and sterling to a one-month high of 152.65 yen.
Datawise, investors will look to the euro zone provisional October PMI data and German IFO index, while in the U.S. Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke speaks at 1230 GMT. (Additional reporting by Satomi Noguchi in Tokyo and Anirban Nag in Sydney; Editing by Joseph Radford)