A couple days ago, the Tribune reported that for the third straight quarter the church had lost billions of dollars on its investment portfolio. As it stands, on September 30, 2022, Ensign Peak Advisors, the church’s investment arm, had $40.3 billion of assets under management, down from a high of $52.3 billion on December 31, 2021.

Now frankly, that the church’s investment portfolio is down is no surprise to anybody who has made the mistake of looking at their retirement account over the last year or so; the markets in general are down. But I was curious how the church’s returns compared to the market in general. And it turns out that Ensign Peak Advisors is required to file a quarterly report listing the value of its assets under management (you can find the reports here). It’s been filing the reports for every quarter since the quarter ending December 31, 2019. So I took its quarterly reports, stuck them in an Excel spreadsheet, and graphed them.

And how has the church’s portfolio done over the last three years? Well, it’s up from three years ago, though down significantly from its peak.