Some are in it just for the money, others to help buy a meal. Then there are those who trade for fun or to spend time among friends. Millions of investors – pensioners, security guards, high-school students – dominate China's stock markets, conducting about 80 percent of all trades. Retirees gather in brokerage houses dotted around China also to enjoy some company and savour the air conditioning on hot days. Some start as young as 13, trading from home with an eye on future careers in finance. Winning isn't guaranteed. This year, among the most turbulent in China's financial history, its stock markets more than doubled in the six months to May, only to crash amid concerns that growth in the country, which makes everything from cars to steel, is slowing faster than previously thought. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Londoners enjoy a “Silent Night” as Big Ben falls silent, London, UK on August 21, 2017. ose Allerston from Clapham, London said “After a stressful day in the office, I couldn't think of anything better than going home and climbing into bed – but when I saw this bed opposite Big Ben I just couldn't resist getting in for a snuggle”. (Photo by Imagewise Ltd/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Amish girls play softball after class during an end of the school year celebration on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Bergholz, Ohio. The celebration was also part of a farewell picnic for four women and one man from this tight-knit group in rural eastern Ohio who will enter prison on Friday, April 12, joining nine already behind bars on hate crimes convictions for hair- and beard-cutting attacks against fellow Amish. (Photo by Scott R. Galvin/AP Photo)

A member of a female grappling team from Qinghai Province armed police undergoes dagger exercise on August 8, 2006 in Xining of Qinghai Province, China. The female grappling team, established in May 2006, has 40 women soldiers aged 18 to 21. The training program includes grappling, boxing, dagger exercise and shooting. (Photo by China Photos). P.S. All pictures are presented in high resolution.

Manuela (L) and Marta, members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), pose for a picture at a camp in the Colombian mountains on February 18, 2016. Many of these women are willing to be reunited with the children they gave birth and then left under protection of relatives or farmers, whenever the peace agreement will put an end to the country's internal conflict. (Photo by Luis Acosta/AFP Photo)

Juri Mitomi, 20, holds a cigarette after a Coming of Age Day celebration ceremony at an amusement park in Tokyo January 12, 2015. According to a government announcement, more than 1.2 million men and women who were born in 1994 marked the coming of age this year, an increase of approximately 50,000 from last year. The increase is also the first since 1995. (Photo by Yuya Shino/Reuters)

Ray Yang, a celebrity trainer, takes a selfie before the start of a workout session during TV program "The Body Show" at a gym in Seoul, September 19, 2015. Looks no longer centre only on the face in beauty-obsessed South Korea, where more women are hitting the gym to improve muscle tone and physical health. As the ideal of beauty evolves in a country that is a trendsetter in cosmetics and the pursuit of plastic surgery, women's fitness has become a growth business, say purveyors of health products, from diet supplements to dumb-bells. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A women rides a motor bike on a street covered with volcanic ash from an eruption of Mount Kelud, in Solo, Indonesia, Friday, February 14, 2014. A major volcanic eruption in Indonesia blasted clouds of ash and debris 18 kilometers (12 miles) into the air on Friday, forcing authorities to close six airports, cancel flights elsewhere in Southeast Asia and evacuate more than 100,000 people from the mountain. (Photo by Hafidz Novalsyah/AP Photo)