Grand Theft Auto 5, or GTA 5 for short, is the brainchild of Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. Released in 2013, this action-packed adventure is a multi-award-winning videogame available to players across multiple platforms. Characters in the game need to be flush with cash, so it’s important to explore the possibilities of ‘getting rich quick’ with different types of con jobs, and stock market investments.
GTA 5 money-making options, in the form of profits from the LCN Market and the BAWSAQ market, are a big deal. In case you were wondering, those markets are likely derivations of the LSE, and the NASDAQ – real-world examples of stock markets.
The game subjects the players to great pains and trials to extol the virtues of criminal behaviour by way of assassination missions a.k.a. Lester’s stock-market assassination. In GTA 5, knocking people off certainly pays handsomely, but the real money in GTA 5 comes by way of mastery of the stock markets.
The gaming milieu is significantly more accommodating than real-life stock markets which require due diligence, attention to detail, and a thorough grasp of technical and fundamental analysis. Stock markets feature publicly listed companies whose prices rise and fall based on myriad factors. In real life, stock markets are impacted by supply and demand, complementary/substitute products, geopolitical issues, and economic data.
What GTA 5 Stock Markets Should You Invest In?
So, are GTA 5 stocks a worthwhile investment option? In the game, they most certainly are. The stock markets are comprised by a number of stocks with a high return on investment (ROI).
Your job is to hit these high rates of return. Video game publisher Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) has been on investors’ radar for quite some time now. Over the last 10 years, its stock price shot up over 1,000%. However, recent game delays and the massive sell-off facing video game stocks this year led to Take-Two’s stock nearly 30% down year-over-year in 2021. Yet, this is no reason for alarm, as the gaming company owns and publishes several franchises, including Grand Theft Auto aka GTA, and has recently increased engagement with regular updates for console, PlayStation, etc.
Beta Pharmaceuticals (BET) can reach an 80% ROI, Façade (FAC) a 160% ROI, Redwood Cigarettes (RWC) a 300% ROI, Vapid (VAP) a 20% ROI, and Gold Coast Construction (GDC) a 180% ROI. Each of these stocks provides valuable returns for completing specific assassination missions. It’s important to correlate stock market investments with specific objectives, to achieve pre-desired goals. In the real world, a long-term growth stock is best suited to younger investors. It makes little sense for a more sophisticated and knowledgeable investor, with a more developed portfolio, to engage in a long-term investment. In GTA 5, everything is high risk- high reward – therefore, a risk-on approach is the nature of the game.
Recall Lester assassination missions? Each of these can be facilitated by trading and potentially profiting from stocks in GTA 5. In the game, traders are encouraged to invest all of their cash across 3 characters into the LCN and the BAWSAQ. Watch for stock-market fluctuations to ensure that the right levels are reached so that you can profit from the rising stocks at their apex, and not on the way down as they are falling in value.
This brings another critical element to the fore: timing your trades. Technical analysis is a powerful tool used by real-world traders, on platforms like 1market to derive yield (to the extent possible). You can watch the stock price in real time and set take profit orders when specific price points have been reached.
In GTA 5, stock-market trading has been simplified with guaranteed peaks within 24 hours post assassination. In the real world, there is no certainty – that’s why due diligence is a priority.
If You’re Investing in GTA 5 Stocks and Not Generating Returns, Consider This…
GTA 5 has a few cheats which could potentially be used to help you generate a handsome return from your stock market investments. If only it were so simple with real-world trading… In the game, you have 3 characters investing in the stock market. Once you hit the peak price on the LCN and the BAWSAQ, sell everything.
Next, invest all of your proceeds into the option described as ‘Investment After’. What you do here is rolling money. As a trader, you have the chance to potentially increase the size of your bankroll, if you take the principal + profit and plough it into another trade.
Standard investments typically comprise capital that is locked away for a long term, without the principal + interest being rolled over into other investments. A caveat comes with this though: there is no guarantee that any real-world trade will yield a profitable outcome. Traders can mitigate potentially bad investments by conducting extensive research into the underlying financial instruments first. Technical and fundamental analysis principles are really useful here.
Back to GTA 5. After your funds have been invested in ‘Investment After’, sell them once they yield the ‘Sell at Return Of’ figure. This is basically the stock trading principle of ‘Buy low, Sell high’. It has been simplified for Grand Theft Auto 5, but in the real world, you can potentially generate gains from falling stock prices. This is known as ‘selling short’. It can take some time in GTA 5 for the stocks to bounce back from their lows, with the LCN taking between 5 and 6 days, and the BAWSAQ taking approximately 2 days. You can expedite the passage of time by ‘repeatedly sleeping’ a character. Of course, if you were trading at a legitimate trading platform in a real-life environment, you would have to simply wait it out. In GTA 5, each assassination mission brings with it new opportunities.
What rate of return should you sell at with GTA 5 stocks?
Each mission has a prior investment, a sell-out return rate, and a subsequent investment with its return rate. In the table below, you will notice the company name, and its ticker (stock reference)for the LCN or the BAWSAQ.
| Your Mission | ||||
| Your Mission | Beta Pharmaceuticals (BET) on the BAWSAQ | 50% ROI | Bilkinton Research (BIL) on the LCN | 80% – 200% ROI |
| Multi-target Assassination | Debonair (DEB) on the LCN | 60% – 90% ROI | Redwood Cigarettes (RWC) in the LCN | 300% – 400% ROI |
| Vice Assassination | Fruit Computers (FRT) on the BAWSAQ | 30% – 60% ROI | Façade (FAC) on the BAWSAQ | 20% – 40% ROI |
| Bus Assassination | Vapid (VAP) on the BAWSAQ | 100% ROI | ||
| Construction Assassination | Gold Coast Construction (GDC) on the LCN | 80% ROI |
Investing takes time, so be sure to plan accordingly. In the game, share updates take place approximately every 45 seconds. Be sure to invest the capital wisely, since investments which sour may not recover quickly. Each of the LCN corporations have active competitors. Suffice it to say, when an LCN company is not doing well, its competitor is probably prospering, and vice-versa.
It’s important to understand which stocks you are investing in, what the competition is doing, andhow all companies co-exist in a dynamic economic system, where everything appears to be in a careful balance of risk and reward. Since the game is primarily about taking high risks, you might also feel tempted to adopt a risk-on approach. Fortunately, this is fun at the Liberty City National (LCN) Exchange Index or the BAWSAQ. However, don’t splurge.
Speculation is another factor which comes into play since it brings the interconnectedness of multiplayer functionality to the fore. This truly becomes a market complicated by the dynamics of price movements in real time. The actions of everyone who is connected to the Rockstar Games virtual stock market are likely to impact stock prices.
The same holds true for real-life trading. When a selling frenzy sweeps through the market, stockprices plunge as everybody dumps their stock. This invariably provides buying opportunities – buying the dip – to profit from low prices which tend to rise. GTA 5 mimics real-world stock trading pretty well, given that traders need to closely monitor the LCN and the BAWSAQ and time their entries and exits.
Real-time pricing is where it’s at, and advanced indicators such as the RSI and Moving Averages, with the potential to enhance your trading by allowing you to weigh your options with more confidence. This is where your knowledge and skill can really make a difference.
Key takeaway
Bringing a gamified approach to trading and investing, GTA 5, mind-boggling and controversial as it may be, teaches us all a vital lesson: be risk-conscious, carefully weigh market sentiment and one’s own possibilities, but above all, self-control.This is GTA 5. What game are you playing? (pun intended) Are you ready to take it full-circle? Tune in to 1market for more thought-provoking trading stories like this and some real stock trading.
Improve your gaming skills on theGTAstock market. Join Real-Life traders!
Who says trading is a different ball game (pun intended)? It’s not entirely the same as the GTA game, but it’s not too different either, and we’re just about to prove that.
Skills you need as a gamer:
Patience – wait for your adversary to strike first and then go for the kill.
To strike or not to strike? – that’s the existential question of every gamer. If you strike first, you’re more likely to win the game.
Something has to give sometime… Regardless of your playstyle, you need a strategy that keeps you in the game as a gamer. But somehow, you can’t always win. As long as you understand that and don’t fret over losing a mini-game or coming out with fewer lives than X, you’re a winner enough.
All these skills serve you well in trading too. A good trader is always:
Patient – he waits meticulously for the trend to confirm.
Strikes – at the right time and always uses a Stop Loss.
Aware that something will eventually give – he doesn’t expect to win every single trade, and when he wins, he does not get carried away by the idea of his own success. He has a strategy and sticks to it.
Trading incurs a high level of risk and can result in the loss of all your capital.
