For the news program, see LCN.
The Liberty City National Exchange (LCN) is one of two stock exchanges available in Grand Theft Auto V.
Website
The LCN webpage.
lcn-exchange.com is the official website of the Liberty City National Exchange in Grand Theft Auto V. The player can use the website to invest in stocks in various businesses.
To gain money using the Lcn stock market, the player will need predict the trends. To do this, look at the maximum and minimum value of any stock, then watch the graph on the left and the actual value of the stock on the right. Using this, the player can predict how the stock will perform during the time.
The stocks always have a peak (the moment the stocks reach their highest values) and a decline (the moment the stocks reach their lowest values), the period between a peak and a decline is called a "contraction." It is during this period that the player must buy stocks. After this period there always will be an "expansion" period, where the stock recovers the value of the previous peak and then thrives to a new maximum value. It is during this period that the player must sell his or her stocks.
LCN stocks can grow or fall really fast. It is possible to lose or gain 20% of the stock value in half a day. Try to avoid losing money because of this by investing in more than one company each time. Remember, always buy stocks when they are close to their minimum value (decline) and sell when they are close to their maximum value (peak).
Corporate Rivals
The LCN market is full of rival companies. Be sure to never invest in direct competitors Since each stock rivals each other, they will be the opposite in stock success. If one rival is doing very well and it's rival's stocks are significantly down, expecting the tables to flip and invest in the failing stock as it will very likely shoot up while the previously successful company's stocks will plummet. For example, if Cool Beans is up by 9% and Bean Machine is down by 9%, invest in Bean Machine as the Cool Beans stock will plummet as it can't keep going up forever. And Bean Machine will likely shoot up in just 10 in-game hours. However, this is risky.
Do not waste your time with rumors that if you blow up FlyUS planes AirEmu will go up or likewise because they do not work. Quick save any profits on your phone and advance time by saving in the bed but exiting with B or Circle, for whichever console you use, so time will advance but it will not save. If your portfolio shows the stocks you own plummet, reload the game so it will be at the time before you slept and had profits in your portfolio and sell immediately. This can be boring but it will stop failures and ensure maximum profit. (Alternatively you can quick save before investing and invest in something else if your last investment had you stuck on money loss, but the stocks might change before you reload if you don't have any shares saved onto your file. This will essentially waste time and isn't recommended. Do not look at stocks after quick saving and sleeping without purchasing and think that you saw the future and know which ones will go up and down, as this will not work. It will only work for stocks you purchased and quick saved with.)
Remember Augury Insurance can fluctuate between -30% and +30%, generating the same profits as some Assassination Missions. Also keep in mind if you reload, different news pieces can be seen for stocks such as 'World gulping eCola on record level, stocks rise' but these are random and change each time you reload, which can give you an edge for predictions, but can be very dangerous at the same time.
Markets
| Traded as | Full name | Description |
|---|---|---|
   ARK
|
Animal Ark | National chain of all-natural pet food stores, because half of the world is starving but Fido only eats organic. |
| AUG
|
AuguryInsurance | Insurance company primarily focused on automobile coverage, know for its incredibly active billing department and incredibly inactive claims department. |
| BAN
|
CoolBeans | National chain of hipster coffee houses. The opening of a Cool Beans is one of the first indicators that the death of a neighborhood's cultural identity is imminent. |
| BEN
|
BeanMachine | Coffe house chain taking over the world one Tiramisu Gunkaccino at a time. |
| BGR
|
BurgerShot | America's favorite national quick service factory farmed restaurant chain, and shining beacon of the global march towards cultural homogenization. |
| BIL
|
Bilkinton | Makers of Priapol, Bilkinton are a relative newcomer to the pharmaceutical market, fast catching up with the competition both in reported profits and open lawsuits. |
| BOL
|
BankOfLiberty | Multinational banking corporation that made billions out of bankrupting the American people, went bankrupt themselves, then got the American people to bail then out. Classy. |
| BOM
|
BobMulét | French stylist Bob Mulét has dedicated the last four decades turning himself into a global brand and TV personality, and occasionally cutting hair. |
| BUL
|
Bullhead | The law firm that promises to win cases at any cost to the client. |
| CLK
|
CluckinBell | A global chain of fast food restaurants specializing in deep-fried, chicken-flavored slabs of salt and fat. |
| DEB
|
Debonaire | Manufacturer of tobacco products marketed at the more sophisticated smoker, whoever that is. |
| DOP
|
DollarPills | Large nationwide pharmacy chain. Energy drinks, cigarettes, beer, painkillers and meth ingredients all under one roof. |
| ECL
|
eCola | The world leader in the manufacture and marketing of sugary caffeinated beverages that turn 8-year-olds into manic fatsos. |
| EMU
|
AirEmu | Major international airline that has taken all the fun out of flying by monetizing every last detail of the travel experience, from the peanuts to the restrooms. |
| FLC
|
Fleeca | The Fleeca card is the high-interest loan that keeps on giving. |
| FUS
|
FlyUS | A once great American airline now left with a fleet of aging deathtraps that they can no longer afford to repair or safety-check. Home of vinegary old hags and bitter fruit flight attendants. |
| GAS
|
GastroBand | The Gastro Band is the world-leading quick-fix surgical solution to weight loss and portion control. |
| GCD
|
GoldCoast | Los Santos-based real estate developer that specializes in converting historic buildings into soulless condos that 99% of the population can't afford. |
| GOP
|
GoPostal | A global courier services company that will deliver anything, any time, except for customer services. |
| GRU
|
GruppeSechs | Gruppe Sechs provides private security services and offers failed cops a second chance to enforce the law on their own terms. |
| HAF
|
Hammerstein&Faust | Slip and fall into the good life with the top employment law firm in San Andreas. |
| HJK
|
Hijak | American automaker, famous for creating one of the world's first production plug-in hybrid electric cars that is capable of running for a full 5 minutes on a single charge. |
| KRP
|
Krapea | American's No1 post-modern Swedish flat pack furniture company which rose to success by figuring out a way to cheat on paying taxes around the world. |
| LFI
|
LifeInvader | Social networking and data mining service. The reason the world never gets anything done any more. |
| LOG
|
Logger | A classic American tasteless, watery beer; made by Rednecks for Rednecks. Now Chinese owned. |
| MAX
|
MaxRenda | Global line of women's beauty products manufactured from animal byproducts. |
| MAZ
|
MazeBank | War profiteers, election fixers, scoundrels. You know, bankers. |
| MER
|
Merryweather | Merryweather is a private military and security company with over $10 billion of taxpayer's money in US government contracts to its name. |
| MOR
|
MorsMutualInsurance | Health insurance provider and national leader in the business of human suffering. |
| POP
|
PostOP | Global package courier that has created a billion dollar company out of losing people's possessions. |
| PRO
|
ProLaps | A global sportswear brand that pioneered the outsource-to-child-labor-and-sell-at-a-10000%-markup business model. |
| RAI
|
Raine | The water that rich people drink, and the main reason why there are now entire continents of plastic bottles floating in the ocean. |
| RIM
|
RichardsMajestic | Film production studio that has survived the test of time by offsetting its passable low-grossing movies with truly awful high-grossing movies. |
| RLS
|
RadioLosSantos | Contemporary Hip Hop blazing into your stereo. |
| RWC
|
RedwoodCigarettes | Tobacco products for real men who don't go to the doctors or read fear-mongering, left-wing so-called medical propaganda. |
| SSS
|
Slaughter, Slaughter & Slaughter | Prominent US Law firm, helping rich guilty people get away with it for over 30 years. |
| TBO
|
TacoBomb | Taco Bomb is a chain of Americanized-Mexican fast food restaurants that has fed students, poor people and drunk drunks since 1970. |
| UNI
|
VanillaUnicorn | Chain of topless bars rebranded as 'gentleman's clubs' to make middle-aged men feel better about the direction their lives have taken. |
| UPA
|
Up-n-Atom | A West Coast chain of 'never frozen, often microwaved burgers' served with a side of right-wing values, religious fundamentalism, and belief that everything was better before the Voting Rights Act. |
| VAG
|
Vangelico | Retailer of high-end jewelry and blood diamonds, famed for its flagship Portola Drive location. |
| WFM
|
WorldWideFM | Join Gilles Peterson as he brings that perfect beat to Los Santos. |
Influence
It is based on the real life New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest stock exchange in the world.
Controversy
- GTA V message boards are full of player discussions and debates of LCN's responsiveness to player activities, as well as the relation of stock prices to the statistics and graphs on the LCN website. But because these rely on individual experiences, across a variety of platforms and game editions, it is hard to demonstrate on empirical grounds whether these experiences are shared by most other players. For these reasons, such controversies are unlikely to be ever fully resolved.
- Although LCN is described as market responsive to the player's actions, this seems to be true only with specific missions, such as Lester's assassinations and other storyline events:
- While some players describe predictable profits from destroying corporate delivery trucks and airplanes, while investing in their competitors, most players have found this to be wasteful and ineffective.
- Missions targeting Merryweather Security such as The Merryweather Heist , Minor Turbulence , and Derailed seem to have no impact on its stock prices, or that of its competitor, Gruppe Sechs. Conversely, missions such as Blitz Play as well as routine armored car robberies have no demonstrable impact on Gruppe Sechs or Merryweather stock prices.
- Many players report that LCN website's quantitative and graphical portrayals of individual stock behavior can be wildly inaccurate:
- Each stock has its performance of the previous week captured by a bar graph, as well as a listing of its highest and lowest points.
- Yet many players report that the highest and lowest price indicators greatly exaggerate a typical stock's short-term behavior, which might only fluctuate by a few percentage points within the span of an in-game week. Many believe that these indicators more closely respond to "all-time" highs and lows.
- In a similar fashion, many players report that bar graphs for a given stock also exaggerate its price fluctuations. Some players have also furnished examples where a stock's bar graph will not change at all from one week to the next.
- Many players furthermore report that the "% Change" indicators are not responsive to small but significant changes in stock prices. Most stocks rise and fall within a percentage point over the course of a business day, but the green "up" and red "down" arrows don't change in response. Some believe that "% Change" more accurately represent's a stock's overall health, and how closely it fluctuates to its highest or lowest value.
- Conservative players may want to buy small amounts of several stocks, and watch their fluctuations over time to get a sense of their practical price range, which may differ from the LCN website's portrayal. Through this, a player may get a more accurate appraisal of a stock's normal behavior.
