The GTA 5 stock market and Lester's Assassination Missions can be used to make a huge amount of money in Grand Theft Auto 5, as long as you know how to invest wisely before each hit and when to cash out for maximum profit. Of course, playing the stock market is usually a risky business and it's easy to lose a lot of your capital if you don't know what you're doing, so picking stock you like the sound of or at random is going to be hit and miss. However, if you go down the Assassination Mission route then you can predict how certain stocks will perform in the short term following your actions, allowing you to use that knowledge to make some sound investments.
To make this worthwhile, you need to invest a lot of money in the GTA 5 stock market to see any decent rewards, which is where the risk comes in. The market can be tough to predict and prices can rise and fall, and your profits with it. You’re also going to need to monitor two in-game GTA 5 markets, the LCN and the BAWSAQ, to see what prices are changing and how. The basics are always the same, though - buy low, sell high.
Stock market prices change almost at random, though, hence the risk to your money and investments. Which makes the GTA 5 Lester Assassination Missions the safer option - you're still investing in the stock market, but this time taking on missions to kill people that will tilt the stock market in your favor for some nice profits.
Coming up we'll cover all aspects of the the GTA 5 stock market and Lester's Assassination Missions to make sure you'll be swimming in expensive cars and penthouses. Or whatever it is rich people do.
Getting Started
The two stock markets in Grand Theft Auto 5 are more or less like you would find in real life. To make money investing in the markets, you’ll need to invest when markets are low and sell your stocks when markets are high. It seems easy enough, but trying to predict what markets will do and how they will behave can be a rather tricky endeavour.
There are some times that you can invest your money in particular stocks - with all three characters - to make some you hefty dollars, such as Lester’s Assassination Missions, but for the most part, it’s all a matter of watching the markets and keeping an eye on the stocks you have purchased to make sure you dump them at the right time.
You can use your cellphone or laptops to check the markets for immediate in-game prices. You can also check the Rockstar Social Network for stock behaviour on the BAWSAQ, although it seems to be slightly behind the actually in-game prices.
The Market Screens
- This is where you can view the behaviour of a particular stock. It will show the highest value a stock has been and more importantly its current value as of viewing.
- This shows how many units of the stock you own. Remember that to make a lot of money, you’ll need to invest a lot of money, so buying 10 stocks in a certain company isn’t going to do much for you. Go big or go home.
- This is probably the most important part of the stock information screen. This will show you the change your stock prices are undergoing. The upper number will show the number of points the stock has gone up or down and the lower number showing the percentage of change. Obviously, when there is any change, you will want to keep an eye on the percentage - whether going up or down. If it starts going down too quickly, you may want to jump ship before you lose too much money, however if it is on the rise, keep an eye on it to see how high it will rise before it starts falling again.
- You can find this screen by clicking on “My Portfolio” tab across the top of the market sites. This is the return percentage that your stock is undergoing. This is the easiest way to tell if you are doing well on your stock. The higher the return percentage, the higher the money you will make at the time, however the percentage is all dependent on the amount of money you have invested.
- This column will flat out tell you how much of a profit you are turning on your investment. Instead of trying to figure out what the return profit calculates into, this will tell your return on investment and either give you a minus number to make you cringe, or a positive that will show just how much in the green you actually are.
Assassination Missions and stock to invest in
GTA 5 Lester's Assassination Missions
Once you receive the Hotel Assassination mission - which you must complete to progress the game, you will then periodically receive other Assassination missions as marked by the Green “L” on the map. For each of these missions, you will be able to invest in companies that are affected by your actions during the mission - with all three characters. To maximize your payoff from these investments, it is advised to leave the optional missions following the Hotel Assassination until after the main game has been completed.
Once you have completed the game, you will have wads more cash to invest in the stocks and the sum made will be astronomical compared to the paltry amount of cash you have to invest at the time of the missions appearing. Below we have listed which companies to invest in for each mission, when you should buy in and when you should sell your stocks.
For all of the Assassination Missions, if you don’t see a rise in the Return Percentage after 10 or so minutes of real-time, go to your safe house and sleep and check the market again. Keep in mind that the stock market doesn’t operate on the weekends, so stocks won’t change during those times.
Hotel Assassination
This mission is forced upon you to progress the story, so have all three characters invest in Betta Pharmaceuticals (BET) on the BAWSAQ once the mission is completed. The stock will eventually start to rise, but it may take around 20 minutes of real time to get there. Once it hits 50% return percentage, sell all of your stocks.
The Multi Target Assassination
Once you have taken out the three targets necessary to complete this mission, buy Redwood (RED) stocks afterwards on the LCN.
The Vice Assassination
Buy Facade (FAC) after the mission and wait for it to rise on BAWSAQ. Watch the return percentage rise up to about 40% and then sell the stocks out.
The Bus Assassination
After this mission is completed, dump your money into Vapid (VAP) on the BAWSAQ and wait for the return percentage to reach 100%. Once it does, sell off your stocks.
The Construction Assassination
For this mission, you will need to buy GoldCoast (GCD) stocks before you take the mission. Once it is completed, sell the stocks after they rise on the LCN to about 80% return percentage.
The LCN and LCN Stocks
The LCN or the Liberty City National Exchange
The LCN is the stock market that gets affected by in-game events. These stocks are not influenced by the behaviour of others who are playing. Most of these stocks you will get tips on from NPC’s within the game, as well as tips from the radio during newscasts. These stocks are the ones to keep an ear open for and invest in them when you come across the tips. Life Invader is the only one of these stocks that you should never invest in as the stock itself never seems to rise - at all.
LCN Stocks
ARK - Animal Ark
AUG - Augury Insurance
BAN - Cool Beans
BEN - Bean Machine
BRG - Burgershot
BIL - Bilkington
BOL - Bank of Liberty
BOM - BobMulet
BUL - Bullhead
CLK - Clucking Bell
DEB - Debonaire
DOP - Dollar Pills
ECL - eCola
EMU - AirEmu
FLC - Fleeca
FUS - FlyUS
GAS - Gastro Band
GCD - GoldCoast
GOP - GoPostal
GRU - GruppeSechs
HAF - Hammerstein and Faust
HJK - Hijak
KRP - Krapea
LFI - Liveinvader
LOG - Logger
MAX - Max Renda
MAZ - Maze Bank
MER - Merryweather
MOR - Mors Mutual Insurance
POP - PostOP
PROP - Prolaps
RAI - Raine
RIM - Richards Majestic
RLS - Radio Los Santos
RWC - Redwood
SSS - Slaughter, Slaughter, and Slaughter
TBO - Taco Bomb
UNI - Vanilla Unicorn
UPA - Up-An-Atom
VAG - Vangelico
WFM - World Wide FM
The BAWSAQ and BAWSAQ stocks
The BAWSAQ
The BAWSAQ is the stock market that is affected by in-game players which you can also use the Rockstar Social Network to view stocks in real-time (according to the site, anyways.) The site will give detailed information on the past behaviour of stocks - over the past 7 days and the past 24 hours - as well as how well the return percentage on your stocks are doing.
What actually affects the market is still up in the air. It seems that there needs to be a mass influence of the same actions by many, many players over time - such as players buying up tons of ammo from Ammu-Nation to affect prices.
Trying to affect stock prices alone, such as investing in Sprunk soda and then going to the Bus Station and drinking all the Sprunk in the various machines there, won’t work.
BAWSAQ Stocks
AMU - Ammu-nation
BDG - Badger
BET - Betta Pharmaceuticals
BFA - BF
BIN - Binco
BLE - Bleeter
BRU - Brute
BTR - Bittersweet
CNT - CNT
CRE - Crevis
DGP - Daily Globe
EYE - Eyefind
FAC - Facade
FRT - Fruit
GOT - Grain of Truth
HAL - Hawk and Little
HVY - HVY Industries
LSC - Los Santos Customs
LST - LST Transport
LTD - LTD Oil
MAI - Malbatsu
PIS - Pisswasser
PMP - Pump n Run
PON - Ponsonbys
RON - Ron Oil
SHK - Shark
SHR - Shrewsbury
SHT - Schyster
SPU - Sprunk
SUB - Suburban
TNK - Tinkle
UMA - Ubermacht
VAP - Vapid
VOM - Vom Feuer
WAP - Dept. Water and Power
WIW - WIWANG
WIZ - Whiz
WZL - Weazel
ZIT - Zit
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