Santa Ana’s Starbase Is Leader of O.C. Pack, With Shares Up 1,491%

The soaring Orange County stocks that helped set record levels of performance flew a little higher during a half-day of trading Friday, the last day of the year.

The Bloomberg Orange County Index, which tracks about 125 of the largest local public companies, surged a record 68% for the year to 304.85 points. Bolstered by high-flying technology companies such as Broadcom Corp. and QLogic Corp, the index blew past 1998’s meager 6.8% increase.

Nine of the 10 top performers were technology-related companies, and two of them broke the 1,000% mark. Starbase Corp.’s stock, which led the county list, jumped 1,491%, closing Friday at $10.94 a share. The Santa Ana maker of software tools for building Web sites unveiled a new line of products Friday.

A late leap led Emulex Corp. to a 1,025% gain for the year as the stock closed at $112.50 a share. The Costa Mesa company develops fiber channel technology, which speeds the transmission of data between computer servers and storage systems, an increasingly crucial task as the use of networks grows.