Orange County stocks ended a horrible 2008 on Wall Street on a positive note.
The majority of major local stocks closed up Wednesday, many after seeing gains on Tuesday as well.
They took part in a broader rally Wednesday spurred by renewed government efforts to revive the economy.
Late Tuesday, the Federal Reserve said it plans to buy $500 billion in mortgage bonds by mid-2009 as a way to bolster the housing market.
The Fed tapped Newport Beach’s Pacific Investment Management Co. and other investment companies to handle the mortgage debt buying.
Gains among local stocks were widespread Wednesday.
Some of the gainers:
,San Clemente-based hotel owner Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc., up 13% on a market value of $300 million.
,Irvine-based industrial laser maker Newport Corp., up 13% on a market value of $245 million.
,Irvine-based Epicor Software Corp., up 10% on a market value of $290 million.
,Santa Ana-based eye products maker Advanced Medical Optics Inc., up 5% on a market value of $400 million.
The county’s largest stock by market value, Irvine-based Allergan Inc., rose 3% to $12 billion in market value.
Irvine’s Broadcom Corp., No. 2 by market value, was down 1% to $8.7 billion after rallying with other chipmakers on Tuesday.
Several stocks beaten down in the past year posted gains Wednesday:
,Santa Ana-based real estate investor and brokerage Grubb & Ellis Co., up 25% to $80 million in market value.
,Huntington Beach-based clothing maker Quiksilver Inc., up 10% to $235 million.
,Irvine-based homebuilder Standard Pacific Corp., 8% to $180 million.
The county’s largest publicly traded companies lost more than $30 billion in market value in Wall Street’s 2008 downturn, much of it in the past few months.
Wall Street, as measured by Standard & Poor’s 500 index, ended 2008 off 38%.
