The LDS Church Made $7 Billion & Still Lost to the S&P 500

Tonight on Mormon Newscast, we’re following the money—and asking what the latest numbers actually tell us about the LDS Church. We begin with Ensign Peak’s newly released Q2 2026 investment report. The Church’s publicly disclosed U.S. securities climbed from roughly $53.67 billion to $60.82 billion in a single quarter, with enormous exposure to Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Micron, AMD and the broader AI boom. But how impressive is that performance when compared with the S&P 500—or a simple momentum ETF? We dig into what Ensign Peak bought and sold, its increasingly AI-heavy portfolio, and whether prophets, seers and portfolio managers are actually beating the market.

Also tonight:
• President Dallin H. Oaks turns 94—and a seemingly innocent birthday photo involving some suspiciously fancy glassware sparks a wonderfully Mormon debate about the old commandment to “avoid the appearance of evil.”
• A Provo man is sentenced in a child sexual abuse material case after an FBI investigation uncovered disturbing online conversations, including statements about wanting access to young children.
• Let the Christ-centered demolition begin! The Church appears to be experimenting with redesigned meetinghouses intended to create a more explicitly Christian worship environment.
• Why won’t these darn kids just get married? Marriage rates at BYU are dropping sharply, and Church and university leaders are trying to figure out how to get young Latter-day Saints off the dating apps and onto actual dates. Is Mormon dating culture collapsing—or are LDS young adults simply beginning to behave more like everyone else their age?
• An LDS local leader in Scotland is sentenced after admitting offenses involving sexual communications with people he believed were 13- and 14-year-old girls. The Church says it unequivocally condemns abuse.
• The Church is celebrating a record 88,500 full-time missionaries, but falling birthrates and the recent missionary-age change for women raise an important question: is this sustainable growth—or another temporary demographic surge?
• Tim Ballard’s former organization, Our Rescue, lands a federal contract worth as much as $244 million to provide immigration-related legal services for roughly 24,000 unaccompanied children—even as critics argue the organization lacks the experience and legal infrastructure for the assignment.
• More than 400 Salt Lake Tribune readers answered the question: What question should be added to the LDS temple recommend interview? Their answers raise a fascinating distinction between institutional worthiness and actual moral character—and we’ll imagine what a temple recommend interview might look like if its central concern were producing healthy, compassionate, accountable human beings.
• And finally: Want to star in an LDS Church movie? The Church is recruiting volunteers for a new Temple Square production—and apparently this could be your big break. All of that, plus what’s happening across the Mormon podcasting world, tonight on Mormon Newscast.

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