Sterling raced to a two-month high against the dollar on Friday as the greenback stayed under pressure across the board, with investors looking to UK third-quarter growth data for clues on the state of the economy. The UK economy is expected to have grown 0.5 percent on the quarter and 3.2 percent on the year in the third quarter, compared with 0.9 percent on the quarter and 3.6 percent on the year in the second quarter. The data is due at 0830 GMT. The pound rallied on Thursday after better than expected retail sales lifted some of the recent gloom on the domestic economy. "The market was wrong-footed yesterday from retail sales data and we saw exaggerated moves. Today we are looking for lower growth -- growth moving from above-trend to at or below trend, which represents a slowdown in the economy," said Gavin Friend, currency strategist Commerzbank. "But it will be in line with Bank of England predictions. It will continue to weigh on sterling going forward but for today, given the dollar's weakness, I don't think sterling will move that much." Sterling had risen to a two-month high of $1.8317 , rising nearly four U.S. cents since Tuesday, before trimming gains to $1.8283 by 0735 GMT. It held steady at 68.97 pence per euro , near a one-week high set on Thursday. Sterling's trade-weighted index, which has a euro weighting of 64.82 percent, a dollar weighting of 16.49 percent and a yen one of 7.0 percent, rose to a one-week high <=GBP> on Thursday.///