Hi dtraeger,
We had absolutely no knowledge of investing, shares, property etc. thus we sought the advice of a 'Professional', in this case Steve Navra. Financial plans were created, which we thought, in our ignorance was 'best practice'. We followed the advice to the letter. Only much later when FOS and other financial planners got involved did it become apparent how totally inappropriate the advice was. So in answer to your question - it was definitely a 'Navra' thing. The GFC was what exposed the advice for what it was resulting in us experiencing massive losses. As the saying goes, you only know who is naked once the tide goes out. If the GFC had not hit, there is a chance that the poor advice would not have been exposed, or not exposed as devastatingly as it was, but the fact remains that given our circumstances we should never have been placed into the structures that we were.
Go Girl, I'm very sorry to read of your plight. First up, can I just say, what GFC? I'm so sick of hearing that we dodged the GFC thanks to the wonderful management of the previous Government! I lost everything it took me 50 years to save with sheer hard work and sacrifices. Around 500k in monetary terms. I read recently, somebody say, when Labor comes to power, sell, sell, sell. When Conservatives take power, buy, buy, buy. How I wish I had read that back in 2007. I now realise that wealth redistribution was part of the agenda with the Carbon Tax being a major part of that.
I do not wish to get too political, but one has to consider why it was that the Australian Share market performed so poorly in relation to other major markets which recovered quickly post GFC. Even now we are still way off all time highs, unlike the US and UK.
I was heavily invested in the Navra Income funds and the Noosa property Market. I couldn't have been in two worse investments. I very nearly invested in the Asian Growth Fund, but luckily ASIC discovered something wrong with the PDS and Navra were forced to offer to refund my investment of 30k. Thank goodness fate helped me dodge that particular bullet!
IMO Steve Navra misled me, but it took me far too long to lose trust in him. He made the big mistake of panicking and selling out of the market at the worst possible time, going to cash at the bottom of the market. He did this twice. Yet he was too slow to reinvest when the market started to recover. Despite assuring myself and many others on the Navra Forums that he would re enter the market at a predefined level, he didn't do so. Thankfully, when this happened a second time, I was so angry that I sold out of the fund and preserved what was left of my capital and invested that into the market myself, and from that day, started to claw back some of my losses. It was a nightmare period that I have been trying to put behind me, but it has affected so many aspects of my life and led to periods of deep depression over the past six years. Things have finally started to improve for me over the past six months (I don't know why that should be !) and I sincerely hope they will for you also,
Lorrimer
