Money isn’t everything, but in Grand Theft Auto 5, you need a fair chunk of it to continue your masked escapades into banks and businesses. One of the best ways to do this is to play around and manipulate the GTA 5 stock market.
But getting to grips with trading isn’t easy. You’ll need to learn to monitor the trends and figure out when to buy and sell your stocks. Like in the real world, trading is tricky, but if you get it right, the pay off is worth it in the end – especially if you’ve got insider information from one of Lester’s assassination missions.
So, if you’re looking to make a little bit of extra cash on the side in the campaign, you’re in the right place. We’re going to explain how you can take your shares to the moon and how you can bank in on the big stonks on the GTA 5 stock market in just a few simple steps. Here’s everything you need to know about the stock market in GTA 5.
GTA 5 Stock Market: How to make easy money
There are two stock markets in GTA 5, BAWSAQ and LCN, but the one you’ll want to concentrate on is the LCN. This stock exchange fluctuates depending on the everyday occurrences of the offline GTA 5 world. In other words, you can make some easy money by taking a look at the companies available on the stock exchange and finding a way to make them crash.
One way to do this is to go on a destructive streak and blow up a number of expensive cars around San Andreas and beyond. This will cause the stock of AugeryInsurance (AUG), an insurance company, to plummet. By picking up a load of stocks at its lowest point, you can make some quick and easy gains in a matter of minutes.
There are also a number of competing companies in GTA 5. By blowing up their stock or by causing chaos at their stores, you can crash the market there and then. Use this logic and rinse and repeat when funds are running low.
GTA 5 stock market – Lester’s assassination missions
If you’re looking to make some serious bucks on the stock exchange in the campaign, then you’re going to need to have patience.
For this to work well and for all three of your characters to walk away with millions of dollars, you’re going to need to wait as long as possible before talking to Lester about his assassination missions. Why? Because the more money you have to invest, the higher the payoff will be.
It’s worth noting now that the first assassination mission is a core part of the campaign that you’ll need to complete to continue the story. When you reach this stage, invest everything Michael, Franklin, and Trevor have at the time, and complete the mission. Don’t go any further though – you’ll want to save the rest of the missions for the end of the story.
Once you’re there, identify your target and begin plying rival companies with your cash. Here is a list of the companies you should invest in before each mission and when you should sell:
- The Hotel Assassination: Invest in Beta Pharmaceuticals, sell post-mission, then invest in Bilkinton Research and sell three days later
- The Multi Target Assassination: Invest in Debonaire stocks, sell post-mission, then invest in Redwood Cigarettes and sell two to four days later
- The Vice Assassination: Invest in Fruit Computers, sell post-mission, then invest in Facade and sell two days later
- The Bus Assassination: Invest in Vapid, wait two days post-mission, then sell
- The Construction Assassination: Invest in Gold Coast, sell post-mission
GTA 5 stock market – making money on BAWSAQ
Investing in stocks using the LCN stock market is a surefire way of making GTA 5 money since the market is affected directly by the campaign, but if you’re looking to make a bit of extra cash, you can try the BAWSAQ stock market. This exchange is affected by the actions of every single player connected to the Rockstar Games Social Club, and, as such, is more volatile than the LCN.
However, the potential gains are enormous if you play your cards right. For example, players made good returns on Ammu-Nation stock when the game was first released since players began buying weapons and ammo as they got stuck into the campaign.
However, since the BAWSAQ is affected by live player actions, it requires a lot of attention. You’re going to want to monitor your investments closely either in-game or through this handy API if you want to make money at all. We wish we could give you tips, but BAWSAQ is unpredictable at best. Our best advice would be to monitor the exchange for a couple of days and analyse the trends before risking any of your hard-earned (or stolen) cash.
If you’re stuck or you can’t be bothered with the stock market, we understand. While there’s no way of injecting some free cash into your game (or online), there are plenty of corners to cut using GTA 5 cheat codes.