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)

TV and radio host Lizzie Cundy, 46, attends the World Premiere of “The Hatton Garden Job” at The Curzon Soho on April 11, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Fame Flynet)

Snow covers roofs, streets and the Charles River following a winter blizzard in Boston, Massachusetts January 28, 2015. A powerful blizzard struck Boston and surrounding New England on Tuesday, leaving some 4.5 million people grappling with as much as three feet of snow and coastal flooding. (Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters)

A visitor jumps for a photograph on the world's highest and longest glass-bottomed bridge above a valley in Zhangjiajie in China's Hunan Province on August 21, 2016. The bridge, which opened to the public on a trial basis on Saturday, spans 430 meters (1,410 feet) and rises about 300 meters (984 feet) above a valley in a scenic zone, making it the world's highest and longest glass-bottomed bridge according to Chinese state media. (Photo by Fred Dufour/AFP Photo)

A stag deer stands in the road in Richmond Park, in west London, Britain, December 27, 2017. (Photo by Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Masai women dressed in traditional clothes wear surgical masks as they wait for a ceremony marking World Elephant Day in the Amboseli National Park, Kenya, August 12, 2020. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

A man reacts to being warned by a British Transport Police officer for not wearing a face mask at King's Cross underground station, London, England on October 8, 2020. (Photo by Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images)

A supporter of the opposition parties shouts asking for peace as riot police are block access to the house of the former president Henri Konan Bedie, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Tuesday, November 3, 2020. (Photo by Leo Correa/AP Photo)