Are stock market events in GTAV scripted?

Question

In Grand Theft Auto V, you can buy and sell shares on the Stock Market via the in-game web browser. I have some questions about this.

• Is the rise and fall of any of the stocks tied to the game's storyline? (if so, which/when?)
• Is there anything that the characters can do in the game that influences the price of stock? (what?)

(I realise that asking multiple questions in one post is discouraged, but I think these are related enough to be a single question. Please let me know if you disagree and I'll post them separately.)

Answer 1

It seems that the assassination missions Lester gives to Franklin, beginning after the first heist, are the most obvious scripted occurances of stock market fluctuation. Most of these affect LCN, but some are companies on BAWSAQ.

Before each mission, invest in the target's competitor, ideally with multiple characters.

The missions are as follows:

• Hotel Assassination -- invest in BettaPharmaceuticals.
• Redwood Cigarette Assassination -- invest in Debonair Cigarettes.
• Vice Assassination -- invest in Fruit.
• Bus Assassination -- invest in Vapid after the mission. The stock will fall, but then rise again.
• Construction Assassination -- invest in Gold Coast.

Also, there is a random encounter in which you take a gentleman in a suit to the airport. If you get him there on time, he'll tell you to invest in Tickled on the BAWSAQ market. Doing so is a good idea, as this stock will climb rapidly for some time.

Additionally, as noted by other answers, performing actions against a company may increase the value of it's competitors. Examples given include destroying FlyUS planes in order to improve the stock of AirEmu and vice versa. The rivals of a company are summarised well in this answer to another question. However, I've not seen this actually work and fear it may just be a rumour at the games release that has been repeated so many times that everyone accepts it for truth.

Answer 2

There are basically two stock markets

1. Liberty City National Exchange
2. BAWSAQ

The first one is controlled by the game and it floats depending on internal game mechanics like missions. For example,

during some missions you have to kill a key person of a company. If, before doing that, you invest in the opposing company you will earn quite some money because after the mission the price of your stocks will sky rocket

The BAWSAQ is affected by how other players are playing GTA V online. It should fetches data from the Rockstar Social Club. For example:

BAWSAQ shares are influenced by the general Grand Theft Auto V community so as players purchase more weapons and armor, or add new mods, shares in Ammu-Nation and Customs increase.

For more information about markets mechanics in GTA have a look at this good article

Answer 3

This answer, and another answer (https://gaming.stackexchange.com/a/137428/13942), pops up in google but it is, IMO, a bit out of date, and doesn't give details that match my experience on the newer PS4 version of GTA5.

The other answer which gives much better detail than the answers here about how to actually use the assassination missions:

Now, in 2017/2018, on the PS4, the mission returns are as follows:

• Hotel Assassination: Invest in Betta. This is pretty much the same as before but I got only around 50% ROV
• The Redwood Cigarette Assassination: Invest in Debonaire before the mission and sell all of Debonaire after the mision. Key difference here from old ca2013 guides is that the maximum profit I was able to get was 45.8% ROV. (Old guides say you can get 80%!).
  • Important: Invest in Redwood after selling Debonaire. Pass time of around 1 week and Redwood shares will spike to around 300%. (I saw between 280% and 295%). Key difference from old guide: Old guide said to wait only 48 hours. This consistently took me around 6 days of waiting before it spiked. Specifically I bought at $7.01 and sold at $27.87.

At this point I have about $225MM per character

• The Vice Assassination: Invest in Fruit before the mission. The most ROV I got back on this was about 25%. I bought at $4.05 and sold at $5.07. This was pretty consistent. At this point I have about $280MM per character
• The Bus Assassination: Invest in Vapid immediately after the hit. Wait about a week of in-game time. Return is about 100%. Bought at $0.73 and sold at $1.47. I now have over $550MM per character
• The Construction Assassination: Invest in Gold Coast before the mission. Wait about a day after the mission for price to reach maximum. ROV was about 33% on this mission.

Result: Around $850MM per character. I'm sure I could have improved this process to get even more, but $850MM each is more than enough to buy basically everything.

Golf course, here I come!

Answer 4

I went to up an atom and brought shares in burgershot before killing people and destroy tables and chairs. Burgershot shares went up only for a short time, so not sure if that was cause of me or not. One more thing listening to radio charges world wide FM

Answer 5

Easy thing just Blow up cluckin` bell's trucks in Paleto Bay North side. Worse comes to worse just blow up the planes at the airport at FlyUS at the beginning of the game get as much money as you can like 100,000 then invest all and go on a rampage with a car with armor and sticky bombs and blow up FlyUS planes once you get like 1-2 million just invest all your money in Lester's Missions and 2 million will = up to 20 million when your done with all your missions then continue with FlyUS you'll have decent weapons all your need is atleast 200 million to buy everything cause you'll get money from other businesses.

Answer 6

Try this:

• Check LCN for the AUG stock (insurance)
• Make no damage for an in-game week
• Check AUG again
• Make a lot of damage
• Check AUG

There is lag but these stocks sometimes are very low and sometimes they skyrocket. Still figuring out.