As investors close the book on another financial year, it’s time to ask where they could have done better. The answer is often the same. “Investors need to understand not only the magic of compounding returns, but the tyranny of compounding costs,” wrote John Bogle in 2012.

Even as the founder of Vanguard wrote those words in The Clash of the Cultures: Investment v Speculation, fees charged by financial services providers were already falling.