Is a Custodial Investment Account Right for Your Kids?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:03)
On radio, on YouTube, streaming live on investalk.com, and for our podcast subscribers, this is Invest Talk, independent thinking, shared success.
Invest Talk is made possible by KPP Financial, a registered investment advisor firm serving clients throughout the United States. Here is KPP Financial Chief Executive, Invest Talk Officer, Financial Advisor, Justin Klein.

**Justin Klein** (0:35)
Good afternoon, fellow investors, and welcome back to Invest Talk. This is our Wednesday, April 15th, 2026 edition of Invest Talk, and Happy Tax Day to all of you. Hope everyone made it to the deadline and made it in on the deadline, by the deadline, shall we say. Nobody likes paying taxes, but it is a fact of life, right? It is a death in taxes, and here we are. There are certainly many moving parts in today's markets, including taxes, as well as geopolitical risks, as well as shifts in different sectors, AI. All this impacts the current trend that we're seeing right now, which means you probably have finance and investment questions for me. That's why we encourage you to call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whether you're listening on the live stream or after hours, it doesn't matter.
If it comes to your mind, you're thinking about it, give us a call. Now, I'm Justin Klein, and my goal here is to help you become a better investor. We're going to make the most of this hour by once again, answering your finance and investment questions, bringing you data, perspective that will help you make better decisions with your money.
Help you go into the decision-making process with your eyes wide open, with the right mindset.
With a mindset that's grounded in reality, not headlines or emotions or political bias or anything like that. So that's what this hour will be about. And in just a bit, we'll talk about today's market performance as usual. We'll also discuss or preview the topics we'll hit on for the hour. But as usual, we'll tackle this first caller question now.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:27)
This is Josh Collin from the UK.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:30)
I had a quick question on ticker symbol CX, company Semex.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:34)
This is a company I've owned for quite a while. And I was wondering if you thought this would maybe be kind of a good area to pick this up.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:39)
I appreciate it.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:40)
Thanks.

**Justin Klein** (2:42)
Good area to pick it up or to trim it. I think he said pick it up, but he said he owned it. So I'm a little confused. But this is Semex. This is a large, one of the largest cement producers out of Mexico.
Historically, it's been a fairly volatile name. It bottomed in 2020 around $1.60. Now it's at $11.88.
It does have some debt in its balance sheet, but that's been repaired over the last number of years. Ten years ago, debt was at about $15 billion. Now it's only at about $6.8 billion, on a market cap of $17 billion. Excuse me. Free cash flow is $734 million.
That's down from its all-time high a decade ago at about $1.8 billion. But that's still a pretty decent free cash flow yield, right around 5% or so. Got a huge dividend, but you don't buy this for the dividend, you buy it for the cyclical nature of its business. And right now, you continue to see increasing demand for infrastructure, for cement, for building, etc.
Earnings this year are supposed to be up 26%. Revenue up 7%. Next year, earnings up 9%, revenue up 4%.
State of Mexico, they have their own political issues, but ultimately their strength is being our closest neighbor and biggest trading partner.
It has pulled back recently, literally touched the 200-day moving average back in late March and has bounced nicely. Overall, it's in a bullish uptrend. Relative strength is 90, very strong. So it's a name I'd probably continue to hold. If you want to buy it here and add more to it, that's fine as well. Understand though, that this is probably not a set it and forget it tenure hold or anything like that. When the cycle turns, this will certainly struggle. Mainly because it's cyclical, but also a by-product is that they're generally a price taker.
Cement is cement for the most part. And that's why their profit margins are relatively thin. Return on equity is only 3%. Operating margin is about 11%. That's good, but they need to service their debt, pay their dividend, et cetera. So, I kind of like it, but only for the near term.
Now, we have a lot to cover over the next hour, hour 45 minutes left in the show. Our main focus point is about custodial investing. Is that type of account right for your kids? We'll talk about the pros and cons. Because research shows that children who develop a healthy relationship with money early in life end up in a significantly better financial position as adults. So, we'll look and explore practical strategies for instilling sound financial habits in your kids. Maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your grandkids, maybe it's your cousin or nephew, whatever it is, we're going to go over that. In addition, we'll have other topics on the docket as well. I want to look at the shale regions of the United States. How are they doing when it comes to output? How dominant is the US energy market now? Talk about us being energy self-sufficient. And that's kind of true. We still import more oil than we export. We also export a lot of natural gas, but that comes with its own issue. So we'll look at that. We'll also look at home builders. Home builders are trimming back, cutting back on their spending when it comes to new builds. And then we'll also look at if we have time, defense spending, how durable, what type of economic growth, durable economic growth that can create. We also have voice bank questions. One is on a Vanguard Emerging Markets mutual fund as well as NHP National Healthcare Properties. And of course, as always, questions that came in via the comment section over on the Invest Talk YouTube channel as well. But most importantly will be your live calls. So if you call live four to five Pacific time, every weekday, you will get in front of line. We love your live calls. I encourage you to reach out if you're listening via our live stream or maybe on AM 1220 in the Bay Area, you can call right now. But we're going to head into a quick break and up next, I'll comment on today's market activity.