GTA 5 Lester Assassination Missions: The Stock Market Guide (BAWSAQ and LCN)

Lester's assassination missions are the closest thing GTA 5 has to a cheat code for money, and they are completely legitimate. Franklin takes out five targets, each hit shakes the stock market, and a player who buys and sells at the right moments can turn a pile of heist cash into a fortune. This guide covers all five missions, the stocks that move around each one, the order to play them and the habits that stop you from wasting a profitable window.

A quick note on numbers: the percentages and totals below come from community guides and vary between game versions, including the Next Gen releases. Treat them as estimates, not promises, and always keep a save you can reload.

How the system works

Lester Crest hands Franklin a series of contracts, marked with a green "L" on the map. Each target is tied to a company, and killing them pushes some share prices down and others up. There are two exchanges in the game:

• BAWSAQ, the in-game web stock exchange, where you trade shares in companies like Vapid, Facade and Fruit.
• LCN, the Los Santos Stock Exchange, which lists firms such as Redwood, Debonaire and GoldCoast.

Franklin does the killing, but all three protagonists can invest. Because every character has their own bank balance, you can multiply a single price swing by three.

The core loop is simple. You either buy before the mission (when the guide says a stock will rise) or after the mission (when the drop has already happened and a rebound is coming), then you wait for the price to peak and sell. Waiting means advancing the in-game clock, which you do by sleeping.

Before you start: get the cash first

Only the first assassination, The Hotel Assassination, is needed for the story. The other four are optional and are best left until after the main storyline. The final heist gives each protagonist a large payout, which is the capital you want for investing. If you have not finished the heists yet, our complete guide to the five story heists explains how to maximise the take, and the store robbery guide is a handy way to top up a character that is short on cash.

Two habits will save you a lot of grief:

1. Use separate save slots. Make one before each assassination and another before each investment. If you sell a moment too late, you reload instead of losing the profit.
2. Quick save and sleep. Buy with all three characters, save at home, sleep, and check the price. Repeat while it climbs. When it starts falling, reload the save from the peak and sell there.

Mission 1: The Hotel Assassination

Target: Brett Lowrey, CEO of Bilkington Research, at the Von Crastenburg Hotel.

This is the only mandatory assassination and your first lesson in the system. The guide's approach pairs two stocks:

• Before the mission: buy Betta Pharmaceuticals (BET) on BAWSAQ.
• After the mission: buy Bilkington (BIL) on LCN.

Sell BET at its peak, then sell BIL at its peak. Reported gains sit around 80 percent on each position, with a smaller figure of roughly 21 percent for BET in the Next Gen versions. There is no big total quoted for this one, so think of it as practice with real money attached.

Mission 2: The Multi Target Assassination

Targets: four corrupt jurors who plan a class-action lawsuit against Redwood Cigarettes.

This mission is unlocked once you finish the main storyline. The trade uses two LCN stocks:

• Before the mission: buy Debonaire (DEB) on LCN.
• After the mission: buy Redwood (RWC) on LCN.

Sell DEB at about 80 percent profit, then RWC at about 320 percent. Across all three characters the community figure is around 330 million dollars in total. Redwood is the star here, because the lawsuit going away is exactly what its shareholders want.

Mission 3: The Vice Assassination

Target: Jackson Skinner, head of product development at Facade, found with a prostitute in La Puerta.

Again this opens after the story. The stocks are on BAWSAQ:

• Before the mission: buy Fruit (FRT).
• After the mission: buy Facade (FAC).

Sell FRT at roughly 50 percent and FAC at roughly 33 percent. Reported totals exceed 650 million dollars across the three characters, which is a clear step up from the first two missions.

Mission 4: The Bus Assassination

Target: Isaac Penny, who is about to take a controlling share in Vapid Motor Company.

This one is much simpler. There is no pre-mission purchase to remember:

• After the mission: buy Vapid (VAP) on BAWSAQ.

Sell at about 100 percent profit, which means doubling your money. Community totals run past 1.3 billion dollars, so this is where the numbers start to look absurd. A common tip is to let a couple of in-game days pass while the price climbs.

Mission 5: The Construction Assassination

Target: Enzo Bonelli, a mafia member turned property developer, at a heavily guarded construction site in Downtown Los Santos.

The final contract is also the most lucrative, and the stock is on LCN:

• Before the mission: buy GoldCoast (GCD) on LCN.

Sell at about 90 percent profit. This is the mission players quote when they talk about two billion dollars, with a figure of about 2 billion dollars per character in the guide we relied on. The game caps your balance at $2,147,483,647, so there is a hard ceiling on how rich you can get.

The best order to play them

The safest route follows the story first and then rotates through the contracts:

1. Complete the story and the final heist so each character has serious capital.
2. Do The Hotel Assassination (it is mandatory anyway) and practise the buy and sell loop.
3. Move through the Multi Target and Vice assassinations to build up your bankroll.
4. Finish with the Bus and Construction contracts, where the profit scales with the money you put in.

Doing it in this order means your biggest bets are placed when you have the most cash, which is how the huge totals happen.

Tips for a clean run

• Do not mix up the exchanges. BAWSAQ and LCN have different stock lists, and buying on the wrong one is the classic mistake.
• Invest with everyone. Franklin does the killing, but Michael and Trevor can both buy and sell, so switch characters before the price moves.
• Watch the peak. Prices rise, level off and fall. Selling a little early beats selling late.
• Do not rush the missions. Random events and Strangers and Freaks contracts can give some extra cash, and you can read about them in our random events list.
• Think about trophies. The assassinations are part of the 100 percent run, so check the trophies and achievements guide before you start.

Why this still matters

Money in GTA 5 is easy to come by once the story is done, but the stock market is the one system that turns a decent bank balance into an absurd one without grinding. It also hints at a design idea Rockstar may revisit. For now, everything about GTA 6 is speculation, but players are already asking whether a similar investment system could return. Nothing is confirmed, so treat any claim about it with caution.

For a story-mode player, though, the plan is straightforward: finish the heists, read the targets, buy the right stock, sleep, and sell at the top.