Wall Street Roundup: Home prices, auto sales, hedge funds and a departure

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Home prices rise: The 0.3% January increase recorded by the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of 20 metropolitan areas was a modest gain, but fewer cities reported month-to-month increases. Los Angeles’ 1.8% uptick was the largest while Chicago’s 0.8% drop was the steepest.

Hope for auto sales: Sales for Toyota Motor Corp. in the United States, buoyed by a slew of incentives following a slew of recalls, are likely to have risen by a third in March, according to the New York Times. And Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said Tuesday that the company, which entered bankruptcy protection last year, expects to break even this year, according to the NYT.

Fewer hedge funds: The number of hedge funds slipped in 2009, but assets under management rose 5.5% to $1.41 trillion, according to an annual PerTrac Financial Solutions survey. Assets hit a total of $2.1 trillion in 2007, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Xerox chairwoman retiring: Anne M. Mulcahy plans to retire May 20 after choosing Ursula M. Burns (who will also become chief executive) as her successor at Xerox Corp. Mulcahy has been with the printer and copier maker for 34 years.

-- Tiffany Hsu