The value of a huge investment portfolio managed for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew by $7.1 billion over the spring, ending at $60.8 billion at the end of June.

Buried in newly disclosed numbers from the second quarter, though, there seems to be a broader downward trend: Managers at Ensign Peak Advisors, the church’s investment arm, appear to have lost large amounts of money since 2020 by trying to second-guess markets and coming up short.

Ensign Peak’s latest filings to U.S. regulators on this public part of the faith’s vast global wealth now show the account just below its high of $60.9 billion, reached in the third quarter of 2025.

That grand sum is more than $30.9 billion higher than it was in early 2020, soon after Ensign Peak first began disclosing the holdings of the once-secret portfolio to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The second quarter total for 2026 also comes to light after Ensign Peak broke in 2025 from a 6½-year pattern and sold nearly $7 billion in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other holdings.

Church officials have declined to explain that heavy selling last year, though observers have speculated it might have:

• Signaled a sharp pivot out of U.S. stocks, reflecting a broader negative outlook.

• Been a move to shift significant chunks of the portfolio to other accounts that don’t require public disclosure.

• Indicated the church needed cash for a large purchase, new initiative or some other purpose.

Billions lost since 2020?

Long-term analysis into its performance indicates that Ensign Peak’s underlying investment strategy may have lost it billions over the longer haul, at least compared to standard market gains since 2020.

That’s according to an independent website called The Widow’s Mite Report, devoted to illuminating the faith’s finances through public documents.

The site underscored this week that by effectively shaping the church portfolio to mirror leading market indexes like the S&P 500 — while also trying to outperform those indexes by tweaking its stakes in certain large blue chip stocks — Ensign Peak’s managers have cost the fund billions in recent years.

That includes nearly $1 billion so far in 2026, The Widow’s Mite Report says.

“Active stock picking has been a significant drag for Ensign Peak,” the website’s latest report concludes.

After selling about $170 million in stocks and other equities in the second quarter of 2026, Ensign Peak posted a 14.1% return, with dividends included, compared to 15.2% for the S&P 500, the website found.

The portfolio’s returns since 2020, Widow’s Mite adds, are cumulatively about 18.5% below what they might’ve been if Ensign Peak simply stuck with matching the mix of stocks held in the S&P 500.

How does this portfolio figure in the church’s overall wealth?

The Ensign Peak account represents just a part of the Utah-based faith’s overall wealth in investments, businesses and landholdings. The account reflects U.S. equities the church holds directly and only those it is obligated to disclose to regulators for being worth $100 million or more.

Analysis indicates Ensign Peak and a host of third-party funds manage total church investments worth about $231 billion as of the end of 2025, based on Widow’s Mite estimates.

The site pegged the church’s overall wealth at about $321 billion at the close of 2025, up $28 billion from the previous year.

By the close of last year, another $90 billion or so of that total wealth came from operating assets, among them ecclesiastical buildings, welfare farms, Brigham Young University-related operations and other landholdings.

According to Widow’s Mite, the faith’s combined assets could exceed $1 trillion between 2040 and 2050.

What are Ensign Peak’s latest top holdings?

When it comes to its stakes in blue chip stocks worth $1 billion or more, Ensign Peak’s top holdings have changed only slightly through the years.

As of the second quarter, the fund’s big seven were Nvidia, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta (formerly Facebook) and chip maker Micron.

The top stakes in its portfolio worth between $500 million and just over $1 billion are Eli Lilly, JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, Tesla, Advanced Micro Devices, Applied Materials, United Healthcare Group, Exxon Mobil, Oracle and Johnson & Johnson.