China may have trouble attracting investors again this year.
ETF Action's Mike Akins sees challenges related to the country's ability to generate returns in the stock market.
"It's kind of an old clichรฉ. If you fool me once, shame on you. If you fool me twice, shame on me," said the company's founding partner. The CNBC ETF Advantage this week. "You have this situation where China's economy expanded. The stock market went nowhere. It's been very volatile. There have been periods where it went up a lot but also went down a lot."
According to Atkins, emerging market products ex-China are among the biggest inflows ETF Action is seeing.
"There's a whole new question to think about when you go into that market," he said. "Is it investable from a total return standpoint? Or is it really a growth story just in the economy and not in actual stock market performance?"
David Mann of Franklin Templeton Investments cites another issue that explains investors' doubts.
"The geopolitical factor with China is certainly on everyone's mind," said Mann, the firm's global head of products and capital markets. "China fell last year. This year it fell again. Investors are probably looking a lot at the political side."
He Hang Seng Index It is down more than 6% this year and almost 30% in the last 52 weeks.
