Those tides and winds seem to be paying special attention to Chinese stocks, pulling even the most robust of them lower.

But a bad time for buying is a great time for working up a watch list, and Renren (RENN), one of the top candidates for the title of “the Facebook of China,” is a great addition to any growth watch list.

Renren (the name means “everyone”) is a social networking platform that encompasses four different sites. Renren.com is a standard social networking site that allows users to exchange messages, pictures, music and other user-generated content. Renren Game Center offers a wide variety of web-based games. Nuomi.com is what’s called a social commerce site that features daily deals on merchandise, local services and cultural events, often using group buying to get great deals. Jingwei.com is Renren’s newest site, a recently launched service focused on business and professionals.

Renren generates revenue from a mix of advertising and value-added services, and hasn’t hit consistent profitability yet. But with over 124 million user accounts as of the end of June, there’s a solid base to build on, especially considering that there are more people online in China than there are people in the United States.

RENN made a little pop when it came public in May, ripping from its IPO price of 14 to as high as 24. But it only took a day for reality to set in, and RENN is now trading resolutely under 6.

There are lots of reasons for this, including a round of accusations (many of them quite true) about fraud and misrepresentation in the quarterly reports of Chinese companies, the threat of interference from the government of China in any successful social media, and a general downtrend in the Chinese Internet sector after a huge runup.

Without minimizing any of those risks, I contend that these threats are already priced into the price for RENN, leaving the stock fairly priced as a representative of an out-of-style sector in an out-of-favor country.

But the trick isn’t to try to figure out whether RENN is a good deal here. The market will determine that.

Once investors sort out the reporting issues and all the rest of the potential problems, RENN will be a popular choice for its enormous potential.

The time to start watching closely will be when RENN pushes back above its old support at 7.5 with rising volume. When sentiment shifts, RENN will have plenty of fuel.

You could buy RENN here and hope for the best or you could check out Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report, the top source for the best stocks in the world’s fastest-growing economies. According to Hulbert Financial Digest, the Report has an annualized return of 9.7% during the last five volatile years (stomping the Wilshire 5000′s measly 1.3% return)! Get started today.

Well, not really. In the vast majority of countries, the vast majority of people continue to go about their business as they always have. They work, they raise families and they pursue their dreams. But the media have become very skilled at showing images of the world’s most troubled environments, from starving children in Ethiopia to burning vehicles in London to moaning stock traders in New York, and the result is that some investors get distracted.

They think–or feel–that this time it’s different (as if we live in a Special Time). And so they leave behind the time-tested rules about investing and start to wing it. And you know how that story ends!

So my message today is to remind you that throughout the course of history, markets have fluctuated, and those investors who’ve achieved their goals are those who’ve stayed the course and continued to follow tried and true investing systems. They haven’t been distracted. For growth-oriented investors, this means buying high-potential growth stocks with strong charts, and holding them as long as they remain strong.

Of course, not all environments are suitable for buying. At times like the present, it’s better to do research, to work on your watch list and prepare for the more supportive market that lies somewhere ahead.

In that spirit, here are three young high-potential stocks. They’ve all come public fairly recently, so institutional ownership is still low and the number of potential buyers is huge. They all have substantial trading volume. And they’re all changing the world for the better in fairly revolutionary ways, which means not only that these companies have major growth potential, but also that their stocks offer major profit potential to early investors.

LinkedIn (LNKD) is a networking site for professionals, sort of like a Facebook for grownups. I’ve been on it for years, though I can’t say it’s changed my life the way companies like Apple and Netflix have. Still, the company is thriving! It has more than 100 million registered users in 200 countries. Revenues, mainly from advertising, have been growing at a good rate since 2006; they grew 102% in 2010 to $243 million. Earnings trends are good, if uneven. And the after-tax profit margin last quarter was 8.9%.

LNKD came public in May at 45, peaked at 122 that first week (a sign of froth), and then declined to establish real support at 60. That was followed by a surge up to 115, a correction–in the big market sell-off–to 73 and now the stock is back up above 90. All things considered, it’s a good–though young– chart. If you think LinkedIn might change the world, put LNKD on your watch list, and try to get on board before it breaks out above 120.

Tesla Motors (TSLA) makes high-performance electric cars. It’s already sold more than 1,840 roadsters, priced at $109,000 each. Next year it expects to begin selling a sedan that seats five adults, for about $58,000. And sometime after that, it expects to produce a model that will sell for about $30,000. The company hasn’t turned profitable yet; the business is simply too capital-intensive in these early years. But it’s well funded and management is top notch; Elon Musk, the fellow who started PayPal and sold it to eBay for $1.5 billion, founded the company. As electric cars improve, I expect Chevy, Nissan and Toyota–to name a few–to compete for the low end of this market, but Tesla’s uncompromising dedication to vision–as well as its freedom from the legacy issues that plague older automakers–may allow it to lock in the top end.

As to the chart, Tesla has been public since June of 2010. Its uptrend is clear, as is resistance at 36 and support at 21. The recent pullback brought the stock down to 23, but it’s firmed up in recent days and is a tempting buy here for investors with long time horizons.

ZipCar (ZIP) operates a car-sharing network, offering more than 8,000 vehicles in 28 North American states and provinces. Members reserve cars online or by phone, and use their membership card to enter the reserved car. Members pay as little as $7.50 an hour per car. They can drive a Prius one day and a pickup truck the next. And it all takes place without human contact! ZipCar’s revenues have grown every year since the company’s debut in 2005; last year they grew 42% to $186 million. And while the company is not yet profitable, analysts estimate it will earn nine cents per share in 2012. I think it’s an idea that can go far.

As to the chart, ZIP came public in April at 18, topped at 32 on the first day, and bottomed at 19 in June. Since then it’s been building a base at the 20 level, and even the market weakness of the past two weeks hasn’t pushed the stock below that support level. That’s impressive!

Finally, a note about valuation. Many investors schooled in traditional value investing will look at these three stocks through the lens of price-to-earnings (PE) ratio and conclude that they’re too expensive. LinkedIn has a PE of more then 300. ZipCar is trading at 240 times next year’s earnings. And Tesla may not make money for years!

Now, PE ratios are a useful tool (among many) for evaluating older, slower growing stocks, like Abbott Labs (ABT), Aetna (AET) and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), but they’re fairly worthless when it comes to evaluating companies with great growth prospects.

Investors who were constrained by the “common wisdom” of PE valuation missed the great growth phases of Microsoft, Dell, Cisco, Amazon, eBay, Google, Crocs and dozens of other fast-growing companies. And investors who remain constrained by PE will continue to miss the greatest growth stocks.

And there’s nothing wrong with that if you want to be a value investor and focus on larger, older, slower-growing companies.

But if you want to hit home runs, you’ve got to swing for the fences, and that means investing in young companies with great potential to grow rapidly, like the three companies above. I’ll be keeping an eye on them in the weeks and months ahead and I hope you will, too.

I didn’t see anything directly related to stocks or investments, but Brimfield did make me think a lot about perceived value. Many of the vendors are selling actual antiques, while others are hawking vintage items and still others are selling just plain junk. And sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference.

I love going to Brimfield but I never really buy that much because the prices are often too steep for my budget. The vendors at Brimfield also really know their stuff, so you’re unlikely to score any real deals (unlike at a garage or estate sale). And even if I really like something, I want to check against values online to make sure it’s really worth what the seller wants for it (and that’s challenging when you’re standing in a field with no data service).

So how does this relate to investing?

Well, just like antiques or vintage wares, stocks are selling for their perceived value. Investors are always looking ahead—in fact, investors’ perceptions of the company’s prospects can be as important as the reality.

It’s changes in perceptions that make stocks move. It’s not earnings announcements by themselves, and it’s not news about new products or new markets. It’s changing perceptions. And these perceptions are all reflected—to those investors who can interpret them—in the stock’s charts.

Which brings me to LinkedIn’s initial public offering (IPO) this week …

Investors have been anticipating the IPOs of many major social media companies for a couple of years now and finally got their first taste of how the industry will fare on the open market with the debut of LinkedIn (LNKD) on Thursday.

The company originally priced its IPO at $32-$35 per share, but raised that to $42-$45 on Tuesday because of growing demand for the stock. It ended up selling 7.84 million shares on Wednesday night at $45 each. That put LinkedIn’s valuation around $4 billion (the previous price had it around $3.3 billion).

Not only did the IPO price much higher than expected, but the stock shot up 110% in its first day of trading on Thursday to close at 94! That effectively doubled the company’s valuation in one day, bringing it to around $9 billion.

LinkedIn isn’t as big a name as social media behemoth Facebook, but the professional networking site does boast 102 million users (to Facebook’s 500 million). LinkedIn, which was founded eight years ago, only made $15.4 million last year.

So why did investors value it so highly? Because of its perceived value in the marketplace and future potential to become as big or even bigger than Faceook, but in the career-building space.

LinkedIn does have three revenue streams: online advertising, premium subscriptions and charging business for recruiting tools that should help build the company’s bottom line in the future. But will they be enough? It’s too soon to tell and you’re best off watching the chart to see how it trades in the coming weeks and months.

How LinkedIn performs in the stock market could be an early indication of how other social media companies, like Groupon and Twitter, will do when they come public. And many analysts saw LinkedIn’s debut as a very bullish sign.

LinkedIn’s story is a good one and it certainly wowed investors this week, but at Cabot, we generally do not advise buying stocks that have just had their debut. We like to see stocks get a little trading history behind them before jumping on board and with LinkedIn’s numbers still lacking, we’ll need to see some improvement in that area as well. This is definitely one to watch and possibly revisit once it gets a little more mature.

The company just reported first-quarter earnings last Thursday evening, and while the loss per share of six cents was a bit better than expected, the real upside showed up in revenue, which totaled $19.5 million, up 174% from the year before and well above expectations.  Triple-digit revenue growth has always been one of my favorite fundamental criteria, and Youku.com had 140%-plus year-on-year growth in nine of the past 10 quarters.

The stock actually blasted off just as the market was topping in mid-February–it rose nine out of 10 weeks, advancing from 30 to 70 during that time.  Powerful!  Then came the correction, and it brought shares down to 54 last week, where they found support at the 10-week moving average.

So YOKU is a great buy right here, correct?  Not so fast.  Leading stocks are still generally under pressure, as are many Chinese Internet-related stocks.  I’m not advising people to buy many things hand over fist.  But YOKU is young (it went public only last December), likely still under-owned (just 128 mutual funds own a stake) and has a ton of growth ahead of it.

It’s small and speculative, but a small position around here, with a stop around 52, could work out.  At the very least, we’d keep the stock on your watch list.

Editor’s Note: Mike Cintolo is VP of Investments for Cabot, as well as editor of Cabot Market Letter, a Model Portfolio-based newsletter of the best leading growth stocks in the market.  It’s been over four years since Mike took over the Market Letter, and during that time he’s beaten the market by 13% annually (up a total of 65% since then, compared to a loss of 6% for the S&P 500) thanks to top-notch stock picking and market timing.   If you want to own the top leaders in every market cycle, be sure to give Cabot Market Letter a try.

RENN made a nice debut, officially offered at 14, soaring as high as 24 in early trading, then settling down at 19 for most of the day before ticking lower to 18 near the close. Trading action during the stock’s second day pulled it back to 16.

The numbers for Renren (which means “everyone” in Chinese) are compelling. Only about 35% of China’s 1.3 billion people are on the Internet, and about half of them have some connection to online social networks.

So the upside potential for Renren (and RENN) is enormous.

The popularity of the Chinese Internet as an investment theme is evident from both the success of established companies (Baidu.com and Sina.com are both institutional-grade market leaders) and from other recent IPOs, like Qihoo, Youku.com and SouFun.

The Cabot growth disciplines don’t have much of a place for brand-new stocks until they settle down a bit, including the frequent post-IPO droop that has hit many hot issues.

The technical analysis part of our analytical methods don’t really kick in until a stock’s chart has a few months of data to work with.

But RENN will be instructive to watch, and maybe, eventually, profitable to invest in.

Editor’s Note: Paul Goodwin is the editor of Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report, which Hulbert Financial Digest ranked as the #1 newsletter for five years in 2009 and 2010) with a total return of 174% as of December 30 vs. the Wilshire 5000′s 15.4% gain over the same period. Paul uses Cabot’s time-tested growth investing system to help his subscribers profit from the hottest stocks in the world. Don’t miss another high-potential recommendation … subscribe today!