Villagers wade through a flooded road following heavy rains after cyclone Remal's landfall at Singi Mari village of Nagaon district, in India's Assam state on May 29, 2024. A powerful cyclone that smashed into low-lying Bangladesh and India killed at least 65 people, including in torrential rain storms in its wake, state government officials and media said on May 29. (Photo by Biju Boro/AFP Photo)

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)

Wendy Adriaens, owner of animal rescue farm “De Passiehoeve” and nicknamed the Ostrich Whisperer, poses for a photo with three-year-old male ostrich Flodder, in Kalmthout, Belgium, 25 July 2022. (Photo by Stephanie Lecocq/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Ice Age – Tibet, China. “This is the Chinese version of the blue ice lake, Pumoungcuo, at an altitude of 5,070 metres (16,600 feet). This lake in Tibet freezes every winter. At night, under the low temperatures of -20C, you can listen to the sound of the ice cracking while capturing the most beautiful winter sky. The blue ice surface and dazzling Orion constellation create a fantasy landscape. I felt so happy to have the stars as my companion on this magical night”. (Photo by Daniel Zafra Portill/Milky Way Photographer of the Year)

In this Tuesday January 21, 2014, file photo, slaughtered chickens are displayed for sale at a wholesale poultry market in Shanghai. The Chinese government on Tuesday, June 1, 2021, says a 41-year-old man has contracted what might be the w0orld’s first human case of the H10N3 strain of bird flu, but the risk of large-scale spread is low. (Photo by AP Photo/File)

An Airbus A380 aircraft prepares to land at Mumbai airport in this May 8, 2007 file photo. Sentiment at some of Asia's biggest firms deteriorated again in the fourth quarter, falling to a four-year low under the weight of concerns about slowing growth in China, the region's biggest economy, a Thomson Reuters/INSEAD survey showed. (Photo by Arko Datta/Reuters)

In this photo taken on Sunday, January 14, 2018, Anastasia Gruzdeva, left, poses for selfie with her friends as the temperature dropped to about –50 degrees (–58 degrees Fahrenheit) in Yakutsk, Russia. Temperatures in the remote, diamond-rich Russian region of Yakutia have dropped to near-record lows, plunging to –67 degrees Centigrade (-88.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas. (Photo by Sakhalife.ru Photo via AP Photo)

A genetically engineered featherless rooster struts around the campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Department of Agriculture May 22, 2002 in Rehovot, Israeli. After two years of research, departmental scientists announced the naked chicken, as it has been dubbed, as a low calorie bird because the lack of feathers means the chicken has less fat. It also matures earlier than its feathered counterparts. (Photo by Moshe Milner/GPO/Getty Images)