Mini-games used to be the little additions to the core games to please fans and extend gameplay hours but Grand Theft Auto V takes it to a whole different level with its stock market investments and this GTA V guide will help you with how to invest, when to invest, and what is the best way to trade in GTA V Stock Market.
There was a time in video games when mini-game used to be side activities to take your attention off from the main game, however, Rockstar Games has taken this to another level with GTA V stock Market which can be considered as a stock market simulator that will let you invest and earn through trading.
GTA V Stock Market, although not a mini-game is one such addition, and it brings a new dynamic to the game. It offers a chance to earn money provided you have the necessary information to invest smartly or maybe influence the events to make your investments profitable.
For more help on GTA 5, read our Easy Money Guide and Properties Missions Guide.
GTA V Stock Market works similar to the real-World stock market with corporate rivals fighting it out to maintain their respective position. All the basics principles of economics pretty much play a role in the GTA V stock trading.
GTA V Stock Market Trading
To make money, your aim should be to buy at low price and sell at high price. It may sound simple but to successfully pull it off; you will need tips about the expected future behavior of the stocks.
You will get this information by listening to the radio and during different missions especially Assassination Missions.
Value of the stocks is affected not only by in-game events but also by the different purchases you will be doing during the course of your playthrough. There are two types of stock markets in GTA 5, LCN and BAWSAQ.
LCN is influenced by the in-game events which can be manipulated in your favor. If you are to invest in LCN, pay close attention to everything that goes around you. Listen to radio regularly for tips on which stock is expected to perform better in the future and make sure you listen to pre and post-mission briefings.
BAWSAQ is influenced by the actions of the players in Rockstar Social Club; actions by the community will drive prices up and down in this GTA V stock market. For example, if the community starts destroying one type of car, it will affect the stock related to it in BAWSAQ.
How To Make Money in LCN and BAWSAQ
When it comes to LCN investments, it is pretty straightforward. You need to make sure the price of your purchased stocks increases. You can do that by affecting your rival stock by destroying its assets. It’s a basic principle the GTA V stock market is running on.
If the stock price of a rival drops, it will increase the price of other. What you need to do is invest in one company and then destroy its rival to increase the value of your stock leading to profit.
LCN Stock Market Companies, Rivals and Competitors
Following are the companies listed in LCN with information that will help you decide whether you want to invest in particular company or not:
AnimalArk
It’s a national chain of all-natural pet food stores. You will also come across this company during a random event. In Bike Thief City #1, return the bike to the owner to get $100,000 reward in AnimalArk stock by the care free millennial generation founder.
AuguryInsurance
It’s an insurance company primarily covering automobile. They aren’t famous for giving many claims so you know what to do to get them out of the business if you want to.
CoolBeans
It’s a national chain of hipster coffee houses. Many believe opening of CoolBeans signals death of neighborhood’s cultural identity.
BeanMachine
A very dominant coffee house with good market share.
BurgerShot
It’s America’s favorite national quick service factory farmed restaurant chain hailed for their cultural homogenization approach.
Bilkinton
A relatively new pharmaceutical company but with a huge potential. It has high profits on the books but is plagued by the open lawsuits. Usually, new companies are a good gamble especially those who catch up to competition fast but open lawsuits are an important factor that you can’t ignore.
BankOfLiberty
A bank that you should stay away from.
BobMulét
It’s a global brand of TV personality, BobMulet himself.
Bullhead
It’s a law firm with a goal to win cases for their clients at any cost.
CluckinBell
It’s a global chain of fast-food restaurants. The fast food business is growing in America.
Debonaire
It’s a manufacturer of Tobacco with the core focus on sophisticated consumer class. The company is also mentioned during the Multi-Target Assassination mission.
DollarPills
It’s one of the largest nationwide pharmacy chain.
eCola
A world leader in manufacturing and marketing sugary caffeinated beverages.
AirEmu
One of the very expensive major international airline.
Fleeca
Fleeca card is a high interest loan that keeps on giving.
FlyUS
An old US airline that no longer can keep up with the competition.
GastroBand
World leader in quickfix surgical solution to weight loss and portion control.
GoldCoast
It is real-estate company that converts historical building into very expensive condos.
GoPostal
It’s one of the two shipping companies in the game. It faces the competition from DirectOp. GoPostal is headquartered in Downtown Vinewood on Laguna Pl just north of Spanish Ave.
GruppeSechs
It’s a private security service company.
Hammerstein & Faust
It’s a top employment law firm in San Andreas.
Hijak
American automaker known for manufacturing World’s first hybrid electric car.
Krapea
When it comes to furniture, Krapea dominates the market. They are also good at Tax evasion.
Lifeinvader
It’s a social networking and data mining service.
Logger
A Chinese owned Bear company targeting Rednecks.
MaxRenda
They specialize in manufacturing women beauty products from animal byproducts.
MazeBank
A typical bank which has profited from wars and has been known to fix elections.
Merryweather
It’s a private military security company that has won government contracts of more than $10B. You know they are doing just fine!
MorsMutualInsurance
A leading health insurance company.
PostOP
It’s a direct competitor of GoPostal and one of the two shipping companies. It is headquartered in SW end of Elysian Island.
ProLaps
It is a global sportswear brand.
Raine
It is a mineral water and beverages company.
RichardsMajestic
Headquartered in southern Morningwood, it is a filming company.
RadioLosSantos
It’s a radio station that you hear during your travels in the city.
Redwood
It’s another tobaco company listed in LCN which basically targets real-men who don’t care about the health propaganda that is broadcasted on TV.
Slaughter,Slaughter & Slaughter
An old law firm that has been successful in helping the rich get away with anything they want for more than 30 years.
TacoBomb
Established in 1970, it is an Americanized Mexican fast food chain.
VanillaUnicorn
It’s a chain of bars.
Up-n-Atom
It is a fast food burger chain and a direct competitor of Burgershot. You can find them in Downtown Vinewood at the corner of Las Lagunas Blvd and Vinewood Blvd.
Vangelico
It’s a retailer for every expensive jewelry and diamonds.
WorldwideFM
Another radio station of Los Santos.
Following table summarizes the whole competition between the companies and how you can manipulate the market to earn profits from your stocks.
| GTA 5 LCN Stock Market Competitors/Rivals | |
| CoolBeans | BeanMachine |
| Burgershot | Up-An-Atom |
| Clucking Bell | TacoBomb |
| FlyUS | AirEmu |
| GoPostal | PostOP |
| Bilkington | DollarPills |
| Pisswasser | Logger |
| MazeBank | BankOfLiberty |
| Redwood | Debonaire |
| Slaughter, Slaughter & Slaughter | Bullhead |
| RadioLosSantos | WorldwideFM |
| ECola | Raine |
LCN Stock Market Related Missions
During the story, Franklin will come across Lester who will offer him missions in which he will have to assassinate a target. All these assassinations have something to do with a stock of the company the target is associated with.
Eliminating them affects the value of the stocks of those particular companies. Make sure you invest at the right time to capitalize on the resulting price appreciation or depreciation after the death of the target.
Missions and Stock Investments – Detailed in Assassination Missions Guide.
Hotel Assassination mission directly affects the stock price of Betta Pharmaceuticals. The Multi Target Assassination mission affects the stock price of Debonaire Cigarettes. The Vice Assassination affects the stock price of Fruit.
The Bus Assassination affects the stock price of Vapid but make sure you buy the stock after completing the mission. The Construction Assassination affects the stock price of Gold Coast. The Big Score affects the stock price of Gold Coast, but you need to buy the stock before completing the heist.
Insider Tip. Do the assassination missions when you can invest at least a million in stocks so that you can make more money with those. Make sure you wait for these assassination missions before investing in stock market and when you are ready to do these missions, invest the money all your characters have in to those stocks.
Do note that eliminating these targets, value of your stocks will increase by a maximum of five percent and that percentage will remain for the next 5-10 minutes before it drops to half and eventually returning back to its normal value. This is your window of opportunity; you need to make quick cash in this window or you will lose the potential of making money with these missions.
Keep a close eye on the stock market to stay on top of these changes. Make sure you frequently refresh the market to note the price trend and make a decision based on that. When the prices reaches the maximum, it will stay there for a while before dropping and eventually coming back to its normal value.
BAWSAQ Investments – How To Make Money
It is the stock market which will really test your judgement. You need to make a smart choice if you want to invest your hard earned money in BAWSAQ. The prices of BAWSAQ stocks are affected by the online community playing the game.
That’s why it was recommended at the launch of the game that you invest in Ammu-Nation at the start of the game since its price will appreciate later in the game as players continue to purchase weapons, armor and ammunition.
It’s a different case now – price of Ammu-Nation has been in free-fall recently due to majority of the community selling back that stock resulting in a sharp decline.
Similarly, prices of less than desirable stocks at the launch (HAL) have sharply increased and continue to rise because majority of the community has shifted their interest towards these low-value stocks.
This is a perfect example of how BAWSAQ works and how you can make money from that market but it requires a lot of conviction and guesswork at your end.
A trick you can use to make a good guess is by following BAWSAQ at RockStar Social Club and deciding where to invest. The catch is, that’s a more updated market than in-game so you will know where the market is heading before hand and you can make a smart investment.
BAWSAQ Listed Companies
- Ammu-Nation
- Badger
- BettaPharmaceuticals
- BF
- Binco
- Bleeter
- Brute
- BitterSweet
- CNT
- Crevis
- DailyGlobe
- Eyefind
- Facade
- Fruit
- GrainOfTruth
- HawkAndLittle
- HVYIndustries
- LosSantosCustoms
- LSTransport
- LTDOil
- Maibatsu
- Pisswasser
- PumpnRun
- Ponsonbys
- RonOil
- Shark
- Shrewsbury
- Schyster
- Sprunk
- Suburban
- Tinkle
- Ubermacht
- Vapid
- VomFeuer
- Dept.WaterandPower
- WIWANG
- Whiz
- Weazel
- Zit
Investing in GTA 5 Stock Market LCN/BAWSAQ
Stock market is there for you to make money even after you are done with Assassination Missions, but that would require your ability to predict trends. How good are you at predicting the stock market trends will determine how much money you can make.
Still, there are few pointers you can keep in mind while investing in stocks post assassination missions. Always study the graphs of stock performance that you are provided before making a purchase.
Analyzing these graphs is very important to accurately predict the stock market trends. Notice the downward and upward movement of stock price in these graphs and try to come up with a hypothetical value of how much profit potential the stock has.
Stocks in GTA 5 are very volatile and are short period investments. Making money off short-term investments requires you to be on top of your game. You need to be actively checking stock market so that you do not miss the window to sell the stocks at profit.
Using the graphs I talked about earlier you need to buy the stocks when they are going down, a trough. At that point, you need to invest money in that stock and sell it when it reaches its high point as per the past trend; it requires an educated guess, but you get the idea.
Always invest in multiple stocks to protect yourself from certain stocks that experience a sharp decline now and then; that’s portfolio management.
In any case, every stock that goes down will eventually come to the price point where you bought it so you can always sell them to break even, but that might require patience at your end.
Do not invest in the stocks that are highly positive or general trend setters of the market. These are the stocks that follow a downward trend and which may result in a loss for you.
From time to time, you may have to calculate the average price of the stock by taking the lowest and the highest value. This will give you a general idea of the price point the stock revolves around.
Make sure you buy the stock when its current price is close to its lowest if you want to make some profit from that investment. Keep an eye on the return on investment of your stocks, the moment it reaches around 10% for LCN stocks and around 30-40% for BAWSAQ, it’s time to sell all the stocks.
BAWSAQ window of opportunity is usually 3-6 hours (These aren’t in-game hours), and peaks are during the weekends. You need to make your move in the given time frame if you want to get that 30-40% return. Invest during the weekends because that’s the best time to make more money.
LCN window of opportunity is five consecutive sleep cycles if you have bought the stock at lowest price or near it and according to the trend, it will go up.
One important thing to note is, you will make more money from trading in BAWSAQ then you will make by trading in LCN assuming constant time. Another important observation is, stocks that are going up will rise quickly and stocks that are going down, will do so quickly.
There will always be a sharp increase or sharp decline giving you a great opportunity to make money from stock investments.
If it is difficult for you to understand these mechanics, you should stick to LCN and come to BAWSAQ only if you are ready for the losses that might result because of a random behavior of the GTA 5 community.
Don’t forget to share different investments and counter-investments you think will help others.
