Emmet's Investing Journey
Hi there,
I’m Emmet Savage, the Chief Investor and co-founder of MyWallSt. In founding this company, I wanted to help people take control over their financial future by making it simple to start investing.
This is because my own start in the world of investing was anything but simple.
Beginnings
Growing up in Ireland during the nineties, I couldn’t have been further from Wall Street. Fortunately for me, my dad was extremely interested in investing and so I was hooked on the idea from an early age.
By the time I graduated from university in 1996, the internet had made investing in the U.S stock market easier than ever. Gone were the days of making long-distance calls to a broker on the other side of the Atlantic. I could now manage my burgeoning portfolio from the comfort of my kitchen via a trusty Dell desktop and a not-so-trusty dial-up connection.
There was a downside though. With a world of information at my fingertips, I became consumed by the noise of Wall Street and managed to do almost everything wrong. I started buying shares in companies I knew nothing about based on the dubious advice of media commentators. I sold positions in great companies just as easy.
I became completely caught up in the day-to-day fervour of the market. It seemed as though the world had entered into a new era of investing where the returns were limitless.
But that all changed in May 2000. The market suddenly began to sour, and in just one day, the ‘Dotcom Crash’ wiped out virtually all of the money I had invested.
It hurt, but as I picked through the remnants of my portfolio, I began to realize that this wasn’t some random anomaly in the market. In fact, crashes like this had happened numerous times before. How did an entire generation of investors before me manage to avoid the same crushing losses that I had suffered?
I decided to read everything I could get my hands on in order to figure it out. And within the countless books, magazines, investor reports, and business papers, I started to notice a common set of rules shared by those investors who were consistently successful.
So I started again with a more considered and long-term approach. I invested time into properly researching companies rather than just going on what the media was telling me. I diversified my holdings across various sectors and industries. I cut out the speculative day-trading and focused on buying shares in companies I believed in.
Investing For Everyone
I began to see success in my investing life again, but that negative experience on the market had affected me greatly. I had blindly followed what the talking heads of Wall Street told me because I didn’t have a solid investing strategy in place.
Now that I knew how the market could turn on the uninformed investor, I decided to share my experiences with others. Along with my colleague John Tyrrell, I started running regular seminars around Ireland on long-term investing.
These seminars were popular, but both myself and John felt that they just weren’t enough. We were advocating a considered approach to the stock market in the digital age, so it made sense that we should adopt a digital approach.
And thus, MyWallSt was born.
We’ve come a long way from that first day back in 2013 when the two of us huddled around a laptop and tried to figure out how to codify an entire investing strategy.
Since then, we’ve built a diverse and talented team in the heart of Dublin City. We also have two apps that have been downloaded and enjoyed by over 3,000,000 people.
I’m incredibly proud to lead a team that has changed the face of investing for thousands of people. MyWallSt stands for getting started. We stand for an investing approach that doesn’t rely on complicated processes or confusing jargon. We stand for giving you the tools to do-it-yourself.
Not only does MyWallSt help you to take that very first step in your investing life, but we remain with you for every other step of the way. From your very first lesson on investing, through to the purchase of your first stock and the building of a long-term portfolio, MyWallSt exists to be your investing companion.
Just one investment can change your life. We want to give you the opportunity to make that investment.
Happy investing!
Emmet Savage
Chief Investor & Co-Founder