HELPING YOU TURN YOUR FINANCIAL VISION

— Into A Reality —

Evidence Based Investing, Retirement, Financial Planning

CHECK THE BACKGROUND OF THIS INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL ON FINRA'S BROKERCHECK

We provide evidence based investment management, retirement and financial planning for a variety of individuals, families, businesses and those with a high net worth.

Our wealth management firm is truly independent, which means we have no conflicts of interest; we work only for our clients, allowing us to fulfill the promise and obligation to act in their best interests. We are continually laser focused on what is most important in our client’s lives.

We believe the traditional investment model is broken, so our mission is to provide clarity to your financial vision by providing simplicity, transparency and excellent service. Our core values represent the firm we strive to be and we believe trust is the highest of those values. We earn that trust by being clear and always putting your interests ahead of our own.

A Clear Focus

ON WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU

Who We Are

Investment Management and Financial Planning in Irvine, CA

We founded Clearsight Wealth Management, Inc. to be a full service, independent wealth management firm on the premise that the traditional investment firm model is broken and needs to be fixed. Our experience has led us to strike the right balance between our clients’ life and financial decisions and every detail of our firm was constructed to provide our clients and future clients with the confidence to entrust us as your preferred investment management and financial partner. We provide clear solutions to our clients by providing simplicity, transparency and great service.

Our goal is to make our clients better, more confident investors. We provide comprehensive, yet easy to understand investment management and financial planning to those who have come to the realization that they don’t have the time, tools or patience to manage their own investments.

Understanding what to do and what not to do can make a huge difference in your future financial security.

John Balmer

With nearly two decades of experience working with both institutional and individual investors, John Balmer is a seasoned Wealth Manager who has consulted on a broad range of investment matters. John's experience working with institutional investors, High Net Worth individuals and business owners in the areas of retirement planning, investment management, estate planning strategies allows him to bring a unique perspective to today's retail investor. John believes this unique experience brings a tremendous amount of value to his clientele and disrupts the outdated way managing investments commonly found at most financial firms.

Prior to founding Clearsight Wealth, John spent six years as an advisor with two of largest independent broker dealers in the country. These experiences allowed John to focus on developing a client service model that was not only personalized but extremely efficient. John is formerly a Director in the Global Credit and Fixed Income Group at Barclays Global Investors/BlackRock. During his tenure at Barclays, John’s team managed the firms’ European and Emerging Markets Credit across all business units where he was instrumental in developing market expansion of the iShares™ ETF business. John spent the early years of his career at Deloitte & Touche, Citigroup Global Markets and as Vice President of private equity research at a multi-strategy Private Equity Investment Bank based in San Francisco.

John holds a degree in Agribusiness from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and is also FINRA Series 7, 66, licensed. John can be found traveling and exploring the coastal waters of Southern California and enjoying the scenic wilderness in our local mountains.

Our large network of professional advisors allows us to collaborate on your behalf and provide seamless service. We take an integrated approach to deliver the most comprehensive information and to help you make the most informed decisions.

PERSHING

SEI PRIVATE TRUST CO.

RISKALYZE

ADVIZR

TD INSTITUTIONAL

CLARITY, TRANSPARENCY, BALANCE, AND CONFIDENCE

What We Do

Unlike the big banks, we are obsessed with doing everything we can to eliminate any conflicts of interest. Helping our clients achieve their lifelong financial goals is our first priority and we understand the importance of taking a holistic view of your financial life and understanding the goals for each.

Our commitment to your long term success as our client is based on clear and concise financial planning. Planning provides the comprehensive framework for us to stage, execute and monitor your financial interests. We have access to some of the most robust investment platforms, which allows us to serve you more efficiently, work as your partner and to create a plan and strategy that works best for you.

We hope to bring a little light to the subject of investing and reduce the pain and uncertainty that people feel when their confronted with investment decisions.

Our focus has long been on educating our clients about how to achieve long term financial success. We will be the first to tell you that we can’t teach you to become world class investors, but what we can do is help you become a more INFORMED investor, we can you UNDERSTAND your choices better and we can help you ASK better questions. We can also help you approach decisions feeling more CONFIDENT and SECURE, less anxious and less fearful.

OUR CLIENT FOCUS PROCESS IS REPRESENTED IN THREE MAIN AREAS:

The fundamentals of investing: Help you understand the basics and try to bring clarity to the most confusing areas of investing.
The Investment Landscape: We will talk about financial markets and the players in the market itself. This will give you context and help you better understand the environment in which you’re making decisions.
The Behavior Aspect of Investing: How you can become a better investor, more successful investor, simply by understanding and controlling your own behavior.

How We Work with You

There is no substitute for a disciplined process – Our Client Experience

Discover

Identifying Your Objectives

• Discover goals and objectives
• What is your tolerance for risk?
• What are your tax concerns?
• What is your investment experience?
• What is your time horizon?

Recommend

Constructing The Investment Strategy

• Gather statements
• Investment recommendations
• Customized asset allocation
• Wealth management services
• Custom financial analysis

Implement

Client Engagement

• New account opening paperwork
• Fund new accounts
• Proper diversification
• Register for online account access
• Next steps

Review

Evaluating Performance Against Objectives

• Quarterly performance reviews
• Ongoing due diligence
• Investment commentary
• Active tax management
• Portfolio rebalancing

We are sensitive to the fees our clients pay and cognizant that the value we add must justify our fees. We charge very transparent, straightforward fees that depend on your level of assets and the services you desire. We believe our fees will justify the cost, especially during times of volatility. You will always know the fee you’ll pay in advance and any other costs associated with having professional money management.

We begin and end every conversation by asking,

"WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR CLIENTS?"

Why Us?

Why should you work with us?

The problem we address is straight forward, most people just don’t’ understand the fundamentals of investing, which creates a lot of anxiety and confusion. We’re here to guide you and bring a little light to the subject and why you should consider working with us.

We believe that clients who ultimately benefit the most from our services understand something very important about behavioral finance, proven time and time again: Humans, by nature are not hardwired to make rational investment decisions when confronted with emotional facts about their investments and or when volatility strikes as it often does.

Our firm generates a great deal of value as your advisor by understanding that we are all human. A large part of our job is to act as a barrier between investors and their own worst instincts. We help provide a buffer between rational and emotional reactions to events in your financial life.

The bottom line is, you should be thinking about hiring a Wealth Management firm that can be a comprehensive resource to you, to assist you in best utilizing your means to accomplish the various ends that you have in mind for your lifetime.

We are certain that over our clients’ lifetimes there will be economic, political, and market events that will create significant emotional hurdles.

Our role as your adviser allows us to help you sift through the fog of complex investment offerings and provide to you clear sight into quite frankly, what’s good and what’s bad. We help you understand the basics and try to bring clarity to the most confusing areas of investing.

We are taking a different path to serving our clients. Our structure truly puts client interests first. When we founded our firm, we tried to rethink every aspect of our business to build a firm that starts by asking “what would be best for our clients?”

We focus on keeping expenses and transaction costs low, the less things cost, the more you keep.

Our process allows us to make modest adjustments as the investment environment changes. We don’t day trade, or speculate with your money. We focus on the long-term and don’t get caught up in emotion or the headlines of the day.

Many of the firms in our industry manufacture their own proprietary investments, which generate additional fees to those who buy and sell them. We never use proprietary products…ever!

We balance investment theory and academic research with judgment and experience.

We deploy a combination of carefully selected active managers and passive investments so our clients can benefit from both.

STRUCTURING AND MANAGING OUR FIRM WITH THE GOAL OF KEEPING YOUR FEES LOW

FAQs

WILL MY RETIREMENT PLAN GET ME THROUGH RETIREMENT?

We understand that the ever-changing market environment is cause to regularly examine your financial situation. You need to be confident that you’re on the right track and that you will reach your objectives. We have the resources and expertise in planning that will clear the path for you to be confident in your retirement plans. We begin by analyzing your current investment strategy, which will assess if you’re on track. We also will perform a comprehensive analysis to uncover inefficiencies that may exist in your current plan.

WHO MANAGES MY MONEY?

We believe that solely relying on your advisor to manage your day to day investments is inefficient and more expensive. Therefore we continually seek out the most experienced asset managers in the world to manage the day to day investment decisions. We leverage the resources of these firms to implement your custom investment strategies but we consistently monitor not only their quantitative, but qualitative attributes. We help you understand the basics and try to bring clarity to the most confusing areas of investing, while leaving the heavy lifting to high caliber professionals.

WHAT ARE YOUR FEES?

Our fees are clear and transparent, as our namesake “Clearsight” suggests, you will have full transparency into all of the fees you pay. On average, our fees are quite lower than most of our competitors. We believe that million dollar advertising campaigns and walnut paneled offices don’t serve you well. Quite simply, we are true believers providing the best possible investment experience at the lowest possible cost fits in with our core values. Our transparency allows us to establish trust with our clients and leads to a more beneficial and better working relationship. Fees are typically based upon the average of your household assets and can vary. For more information, please contact one of our advisors to discuss how to reduce your fees or analyze what you are paying now.

HOW MUCH RISK SHOULD I BE TAKING?

Each one of our clients goes through a rigorous risk assessment in the comfort of their home or office. We’ve developed a partnership with the leading risk assessment profile provider, which allows us to compare where you are today, where you need to be tomorrow and how your current investment strategy stacks up in terms of risk. We do this for you, so you are a more informed investor, who you understand their investment choices better.

WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT DETERMINANT OF MY PORTFOLIOS PERFORMANCE?

Investment performance of a given portfolio relies on a variety of differing factors. Through academic research, we have identified a few key areas that allow for the highest probability of reaching your long term performance goals. Asset allocation is the single largest determinant of long term performance. Having a well allocated portfolio across multiple asset classes helps to reduce, risk and volatility that may cause an investor to behave in a manner that is detrimental to their long term performance. We also believe fees also a contribute to determining a positive or negative investment outcome. We monitor both closely.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO TRANSITION MY WEALTH TO FUTURE GENERATIONS?

In all phases of life, proper planning is the foundation for a successful outcome. Having an estate or legacy plan in place assures that not only will your money transition, but that your “values about money” will continue to be aligned for future generations to come. Many of our clients desire to establish charitable endeavors. However, the last thing they want is to put their current or future situation at risk. This is why we take you through our Clearsight planning process that looks at your current needs, future needs and resources as we help you determine the right amount and right time to make gifts.

WHERE IS MY MONEY HELD?

For your protection, we hold assets in custody at a variety of 3rd party institutions that hold and report on the value of your assets. Some of these 3rd parties range from Pershing, SEI Private Trust Company, TD Institutional and Charles Schwab. We never hold client asset directly and only have limited authority to direct how we implement your investment plan or strategies.

DO I REALLY NEED A FINANCIAL PLAN?

We are true believers in long term financial planning. Just like planning for a vacation, you need to know where you you’re going before you get there. Our planning is generally inclusive of our fee structure and we encourage all of our clients to take advantage of our services. When thinking of your financial plan, all the components, i.e. investments, taxes, insurance, estate planning, healthcare, education, debt management, help complete the puzzle. Without putting it all together it’s hard to know where you’re going and even more difficult to predict where you’ll end up.

IS THERE SOMETHING ELSE I SHOULD BE ASKING?

Don’t’ worry, we’ve got it covered! Long-term capital preservation and growth requires strategy, diversification and discipline. To inform our work, we answer all your questions, plus a few you may not have considered. Things like:

• What should I invest in?

• What should I invest in besides stocks and bonds?

• How should I think about my house? Is that my real estate allocation?

• What the heck are alternative investments? Are they right for me?

• Why should I care about Emerging Markets or Brazil?