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)

A monument to the character of Darth Vader from "Star Wars", which was rebuilt from a statue of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin, is seen in Odessa, Ukraine, October 23, 2015. The Internet Party of Ukraine's main candidate, a person named for the legendary "Star Wars" villain Darth Vader, campaigned in Odessa, cruising through town on a black van to the sound of Imperial March from "Star Wars" saga. (Photo by Yevgeny Volokin/Reuters)

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (R) and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (L) visit Seppeltsfield Winery in Barossa Valley, Australia, 10 November 2015. The royal couple are on a 12-day tour visiting seven regions in New Zealand and three states and one territory in Australia. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/EPA)

Yakelin Hernandez, 18, poses for a photograph near The Malecon where The Carnival was held, on August 14, 2015. Colorful costumes, dancing, parades and street parties on the Malecon in Havana, Cuba are all part of Havana Carnival 2015 which was held in August. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Children try to walk through a flooded street at Kampung Melayu residential area in Jakarta, December 23, 2014. Torrential rains that have continued in Indonesia in recent days have widened the number of flooded areas that include Jakarta and Bandung, a local newspaper said on Tuesday. (Photo by Reuters/Beawiharta)

A large balloon of a face of “ojisan”, a middle aged man, floats in the sky above the grounds of Nishiki elementary school in Utsunomiya in Tochigi prefecture, 100km north of Tokyo on December 21, 2014. Members of art group “Me”, meaning “eye” in Japanese and the Utsunomiya Museum of Art launched an art installation “The Day an Ojisan's Face Floated in the Sky”, a 15-meter by 10-meter face balloon of the depicted man, who was auditioned in the city, looking down on his home town from the sky. (Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP Photo)

Belarusian Sergei Selekh plays with his 6-month-old tamed wolves on the outskirts of the village of Gaina, 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of Belarus capital Minsk, Wednesday, December 31, 2014. Selekh owns a farmstead, where sheep, wolves and an ethnographic museum serve as entertainment for guests. (Photo by Sergei Grits/AP Photo)

People carry cutouts of coffins during a march to commemorate the more than 617 people they say have been killed by law enforcement in LA County since 2000, in Los Angeles, California April 7, 2015. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)