China’s market regulator may have succeeded in taking much of the froth off the surging commodities markets last week, but the message is not filtering down to many dedicated retail traders.

As Chinese markets reopened yesterday after the May Day holiday, a few dozen young traders in Shanghai crowded into a small room provided by a local brokerage. The mostly 20-something male traders, in jeans and T-shirts, were looking forward to another week of fevered risk taking in China’s hottest new casino.

“It’s better for futures traders to be young because they can learn faster,” said Zhang Jun, 26, who has been trading commodities on the Shanghai Futures Exchange for three years but has only recently begun to make any money. “This is not relevant to anything you study before you get here. I don’t know anyone who studied a relevant major,” said Mr Zhang, a mechanical engineer by training.