Whether you’re a beginner investor or looking to optimize your portfolio after completing the game’s main missions, these methods will help you navigate GTA 5’s stock market and make smart trades. We’ll cover:

• Lester’s Assassination Missions and how to time your investments around them
• Story affected stocks
• High Frequency Trading on the LCN exchange
• Exploiting the insurance stock market after rampages
• Finding the most volatile LCN stock for consistent gains
• Understanding company rivalries to predict stock movements
• Listening to the radio for insider stock tips
• Manipulating stock prices through targeted destruction
• Optimizing trading by advancing time efficiently

Lester Assassination Missions

The “Lester Assassination Missions” method of investing in GTA 5’s stock market is probably the most fool-proof method to make money in in the game, and lots of it too.

Basically, it boils down buying and sell specific stocks before and after you complete the assassination missions for Lester (which are a big part of the single player story line).

Story Affected Stocks

LifeInvader and Richards Majestic

You should not invest in LifeInvader or Richards Majestic. LifeInvader will decrease in value after Friend Request, and Richards Majestic decreases at a later point in the game. The key issue with these two is that they never regain their original values.

Vangelico

Vangelico will decrease in value after The Jewel Store Job and increase after Minor Turbulence, for about a 40% return if you buy at its low and sell at its high.

FlyUS

FlyUS will decrease in value by about 50% after Legal Trouble and increase to its original value after Meltdown, for a 100% return if you buy at its low and sell at its high.

Cluckin’ Bell

Cluckin’ Bell will decrease in value after Paleto Score and Gruppe Sachs will decrease in value after The Big Score (subtle version). These two, along with Augury Insurance and Merryweather (which do not decrease in value during the game), will increase for high returns based on your ending decision.

Cluckin’ Bell will increase to its original value if you go with The Third Way (Deathwish) ending choice, for about a 65% return if you buy at its low and sell at its high. Gruppe Sachs will also increase to its original value, for about a 30% – 35% return if you buy at its low and sell at its high. Augury Insurance will double in value, for a 100% return.

However, if you pick The Third Way, Merryweather will decrease in value by over 50% and never return to its original value. To make money by investing in Merryweather, you should choose The Time’s Come. It will increase in value for about a 250% return.

High Frequency Stock Trading

This only works for LCN stocks and do make it worthwhile you need A LOT of money. For this reason it is good to do after you’ve finished all of Lester’s assassination missions, for example. You should also know that the prices of the LCN stocks will refresh every 45 seconds while you’re doing this.

1. Look for the stock that has the lowest price (meaning you can buy more of it).
2. Buy it (the maximum amount) and then immediately save your game. Don’t muck around when doing this (you will have 45 seconds or less).
3. Once saved then check the stock by pretending to purchase more. Provided you stay on the “purchase more stock page” the price will constantly refresh for you.
4. If the stock price goes up, then save your game and repeat the steps above. If the stock price goes down then reload your initial save game and try again.

This can be a little annoying (having to wait through a lot of saving screens) but it can also be worthwhile provided you are investing a lot of money to begin with. The incremental changes won’t be massive (maybe a few cents per price change) but they add up if you have loads of money riding on it…

Insurance Company Stock Tip

Head out on a mission of destruction and then immediately put some money into AugeryInsurance stock (AUG). When you destroyed lots of cars by damaging them, it should have caused the stock price to go down. Then after a while (and given you’ve stopped destroying things) the stock should shoot right back up!

LCN Stock Trading

When you’re playing GTA V there will always be one particular stock on the LCN market that fluctuates within a set range (well pretty much a set range).

If you can find that stock and know it’s range, then it’s just a matter of continuously trading it to make money! When it goes down into the bottom of the trading range, buy it. Then when it goes up to the top, sell it!

Note that the stock in question for your game will not be one affected by the Assassination Missions (ie Debonaire Cigarettes, Redwood or GoldCoast).

Best Stocks to Buy & Sell

This table is useful because what is good for one company (i.e. its stock price will increase) will often be bad for its competitor (its stock price will decrease). So, if certain events happen in the game that might be good or bad for specific companies, you have a better idea of what stocks you should buy.

List of Stock Tickers for all BAWSAQ Stocks

• Alpha Mail
• Ammu-Nation (AMU)
• Bank of Liberty
• Badger Wireless (BADR)
• Bean Machine (BEAN)
• Biglogs (BIGL)
• Binco (BNCO)
• Bleeter (BLE)
• Burger Shot (BSHT)
• Candy Box (CABOX)
• Canyon Entertainment (CANE)
• Cluckin’ Bell (CUBEL)
• CNT (CNTU)
• eCola (ECLA)
• Eris (ERIS)
• Eugenics Incorporated (UGEN)
• Eyefind.info (EYEF)
• Fleeca (FLEE)
• Fruit Computers (FRUC)
• Genic (GNIC)
• Globe Oil (GLBOIL)
• Gruppe Sechs
• Heat
• Liberty Tree (LIBT)
• Limit
• Logger Beer (LOGR)
• Liberty Sports Network (LSNW)
• MeTV (METV)
• Nx-Jn (NXJN)
• Pißwasser
• RON Oil (RONO)
• Shark Credit Card (SHRK)
• Schmidt & Priss
• Sprunk (SPUK)
• Tinkle Telecom (TIKL)
• Weazel Networks (WZNT)
• Whiz Wireless (WHIZ)
• WIWANG (WIW)
• Xero (XGAS)

eCola Stock

Our eCola stock market guide has its own page here. By following the steps you can earn a ton of money early on in single player mode.

List of Stock Tickers for all LCN Stocks

• ARK – AnimalArk
• AUG – AuguryInsurance
• BAN – CoolBeans
• BEN – BeanMachine
• BGR – BurgerShot
• BIL – Bilkington
• BOL – BankOfLiberty
• BOM – BobMulét
• BUL – Bullhead
• CLK – CluckinBell
• DEB – Debonaire
• DOP – DollarPills
• ECL – eCola
• EMU – AirEmu
• FLC – Fleeca
• FUS – FlyUS
• GAS – GastroBand
• GCD – GoldCoast
• GOP – GoPostal
• GRU – GruppeSechs
• HAF – Hammerstein&Faust
• HKJ – Hijak
• KRP – Krapea
• LFI – Lifeinvader
• LOG – Logger
• MAX – MaxRenda
• MAZ – MazeBank
• MER – Merryweather
• MOR – MorsMutualInsurance
• POP – PostOP
• PRO – ProLaps
• RAI – Raine
• RIM – RichardsMajestic
• RLS – RadioLosSantos
• RWC – Redwood
• SSS – Slaughter,Slaughter&Slaughter
• TBO – TacoBomb
• UNI – VanillaUnicorn
• UPA – Up-n-Atom
• VAG – Vangelico
• WFM – WorldwideFM

Radio Stock Tips

If you listen often to talk back radio stations then you’re more likely to hear about stock tips. If you do happen to hear something, load up on the stock being discussed to profit!

Stock Market – Buy Cheap and Sell High

Here’s a way to score some cheap stock and then also increase its value.

This tactic hinges on the company rivalry/competitor system, and is centered around the Los Santos International Airport. If you check out our chart above, you’ll note that AirEMU and FlyUS are rival airline companies, and this can be used to earn big time. Before starting this, make sure to save your game so you have a restore point with all your money in case something goes wrong.

To start out, you need to purchase all the AirEMU stock that you can. After that, start destroying FlyUS planes at the airport. There should be plenty, and the large liveries on the sides of the planes will let you know what airline they belong to. By destroying the planes, you can steadily decrease FlyUS’ market value, thus increasing AirEMU.

By piloting FlyUS planes and crashing them, you can decrease their value by a greater magnitude, but this is pretty time-consuming. After you have destroyed a bunch of planes, commit suicide or go to sleep at one of your properties, but do not save the game. Check the stock market a few times, and keep killing yourself/sleeping until the profit percentage increases. I can go as high as 10%, but if it stops increasing after a while just get your winnings and sell as high as you can.

Tinkle Stock Tip

Ideally this is best done later in the game when you have serious cash to invest…

1. First get all your characters to invest in Tinkle (TNK) on the BAWSAQ.
2. Then head to Hitch Lift 1 using Michael as your character and you’ll see a guy to pick up.
3. You need to take him to the Airport and along the way he’ll tell you about a particular stock that is going to increase in value.
4. $Profit$

Trading Days and Advancing Time

Each trading day on the stock market begins at 8am (except weekends), so if you are advancing time, then make sure you check it at 8am each day. Advancing time via sleeping will put your forward 8 hours.

And if you want to advance time more quickly/efficiently, you don’t have to actually save. Instead just go head into the save screen when at a bed and then exit. This is enough to advance time.

Original Method

Tips and Prerequisites

If you want to really cash-in, wait until the end of the game (when you’ve completed the campaign and the “The Big Score” and should have lots of money) to do the assassination missions. This will let you invest the most money and also realize the most profits… Each character will have between $40 and $100 MILLION!

You also need to cycle through each of your characters before each mission so that you can invest all their money in the relevant stock. And, before you start a mission, make sure you quick save, just in case you make a mistake.

One final thing – if you need to advance some days in order for the stock price to move as desired, go to a safehouse and fall asleep. This will pass the time enough for your investments to spike. Then sell them!

The List of Stocks

Invest in the stock listed below before each assassination mission and follow any other notes. It’s that easy!

Assassination Mission Investing 2.0

Some dedicated fans (thanks Brent, for sending this in) have found ways to squeeze even more cash out of the above method.

The concept of this particular method relies on using Bilkington (BIL) to boost your maximum investments. The key is to make the company tank at a particular point in the game.

Preparing the Stock Decrease

Progress as usual and complete everything you can up until the Hotel Assassination mission, and make sure you have completed the preparations for Blitz Play. Then, you need to complete the Hotel Assassination and afterwards, do Blitz Play.

When you start the Blitz Play mission, make sure you are currently controlling Michael. This should be the default, but it is key. Play up until the point where Michael drops the envelope to Devin Weston and then immediately switch to Franklin.

At this point Franklin will still be sitting in the getaway car, so you can drive straight to Devin to complete the first recovery mission. Then you need to switch over the Trevor and complete the second recovery mission. When finished, before you proceed you have to sell all of your Betta Pharmaceuticals stock – but do not buy Bilkington yet.

Wait for the Stock Decrease

Continue playing the game as usual from here – Michael will run a mission for Solomon Richards and Madrazo, meet up with Trevor, take Franklin to Michael’s house for the hijacking mission and more, all up until the Paleto Bay Heist mission is reached. You can just play normally through all these missions.

Invest

At this point, Bilkington stock will be at the minimum it can be. If you were successful, all three of the protagonists – Franklin, Trevor, and Michael – will have an extra $400,000 to be used for investments, and if you use that to buy up the now-dirt cheap Bilkington stock, the final payout from all of the investment assassinations at the end of the game will be boosted by $16,000,000!

Frequently Asked Questions

Play through the story missions until you reach “Friend Request,” the first mission Lester gives to Michael, where you go after Jay Norris, the founder of Lifeinvader. Before you start this mission, build up enough money to buy shares of eCola.

This will take a while, so determine how much time you’re willing to spend and how great a profit you want to earn, in order to decide the number of shares to buy.

To earn money, you can complete races as Franklin and rob armored trucks as Michael. Two armored trucks you definitely want to target are the ones in Little Seoul near the Burger Shot and at the Ammu-Nation parking lot in Paleto Bay. At these locations, the men with the suitcase will already be outside of the truck.

Once you’ve bought as many shares of eCola as you want, continue playing.

When you switch to Trevor, you’ll have another chance. He starts with $100,000, so use that to purchase additional shares of eCola, which should be priced at $4-6 dollars per share.

Continue to play the game and keep an eye on eCola’s price. When it crosses $125 per share, you’ll be able to sell yours for a large profit! If you have any stock tips of your own please comment below.

Frequently Asked Questions