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)

Somali couple Mohamed Noor (L) and Huda Omar pose for a photograph at their makeshift home during their wedding ceremony in Mogadishu's Rajo camp, Somalia August 17, 2016. Having met two years ago, the pair have just married at Rajo camp, where some 400 families live. Most, like Noor's parents, came here in the early 1990s to flee famine. (Photo by Feisal Omar/Reuters)

A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, September 9, 2016. At a rocky outpost in Western Sahara, a new generation of soldiers who have never known war are mobilising as tensions resurface in one of Africa's oldest disputes after a quarter century of uneasy peace. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

In an observance of Epiphany, Russian Orthodox believers swim in an icy pond outside Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. (Photo by Olga “Zwezdochka”)

A migrant boy sits on railway tracks at a train station in Tovarnik, Croatia, September 20, 2015. (Photo by Antonio Bronic/Reuters)

Cosplayer Monzerath Gutierrez, who portrays Dragon Ball Z character Trunks, female version, poses for a portrait during the 4th edition of the MiniCon Anime convention, at the School of Dance, in Managua, Nicaragua, Sunday, July, 26, 2015. (Photo by Esteban Felix/AP Photo)

Monks dressed as Tibetan Buddhism characters attend a religious ceremony, known as “Da Gui” or beating ghost, to celebrate the upcoming Tibetan New Year which starts on March 1 at Yonghegong Lama Temple, in Beijing February 28, 2014. This Tibetan ceremony is held annually at the end of the first lunar month with mask dancing to expel ghosts, according to a press release. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Dublin Horse Show mascot “Conor the Capall” among the crowds on the opening day of the 147th Dublin Horse Show at the RDS on Wednesday, August 17, 2022, the first to be held since 2019. The event which was first held in 1864 takes place over the next five days and includes national and international show jumping competitions. (Photo by Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images)