Gold holds ground after 3% drop on Warsh's hawkish stance

Aug. 31 (Reuters) - Gold prices were flat on Monday, after falling more than 3% in the previous session following U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's speech that signalled interest rate hikes may be needed.

• Spot gold XAU= held its ground at $4,455.29 per ounce by 0011 GMT after hitting its lowest level since Aug. 19 earlier in the session.
• U.S. gold futures GCcv1 for December delivery fell 0.6% to $4,504.90.
• The U.S. central bank will "have work to do" if policymakers don't get the confidence they need that inflation is heading down to 2%, Fed Chair Warsh said on Friday, coming closer than he has to acknowledging interest rate hikes may be needed to ease price pressures.
• Markets currently see a 57% chance of a rate hike at the Fed's next policy meeting in September, compared with 36% prior to Warsh's comments, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
• Higher interest rates often weigh on gold prices since holding a non-yielding asset becomes less attractive.

A series of U.S. labour market reports is due this week, including job openings, the ADP employment report, weekly jobless claims and nonfarm payrolls data.

Iran condemned the United States' new economic sanctions on Friday as "state terrorism" while its supreme leader said he was banning acts that could harm "social cohesion" amid concern that more financial pain could spark unrest at home.