Our Watch List, of the 50 of Australian and NZ companies that meet the highest number of my 9 Key Criteria of Company Excellence, has recovered from the ugly third quarter and closed the gap with the benchmark indices. Unusually, however, the combined strength of these companies was not enough to outperform the wider markets over the course of the year. This is a reflection of a number of one-off events, such as Cochlear’s (AU: COH) product recall, Rakon’s (NZ: RAK) issues with compe ...