The Grocery Store That Brought Down the Soviet Union
A 1989 moment in Houston explains why Louis Navellier has been bullish on America for 47 years — and why he’s doubling down right now.
Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI).
Before we jump in today, a reminder that our InvestorPlace offices are closed today in honor of Independence Day. If you need help from our Customer Service team, they’ll be happy to assist you when we reopen on Monday.
This Fourth of July marks America’s 250th birthday. And for legendary investor Louis Navellier, it’s also a reminder of something investors sometimes overlook.
For nearly 50 years, Louis has watched America navigate recessions, wars, inflation, financial crises, and bear markets. Through it all, he’s reached the same conclusion: this remains the greatest wealth-creation machine in history.
In this Friday Digest takeover, he explains why that conviction is even stronger today, thanks in large part to America’s leadership in AI. Along the way, he shares a remarkable story from the final years of the Soviet Union – and why it still carries an important lesson for investors.
Louis also highlights the AI-related sectors he’s watching most closely and expands on them in a recent presentation, where he reveals the stocks he believes could become the next wave of AI winners. You can watch it right here.
Whether you’re celebrating America’s birthday with family, friends, or fireworks, Louis’ perspective is a fitting reminder of why owning great American businesses has been one of history’s best long-term investments.
I’ll let Louis take it from here.
Have a good evening,
Jeff Remsburg
In September 1989, Boris Yeltsin came to America.
At the time, he was a rising political figure inside the Soviet Union – a reformer who had begun to question the system he had spent his life serving. He would later become the first president of Russia.
The trip was part diplomacy, part public relations, part fact-finding mission. Yeltsin toured the country, met with officials, and saw the polished version of American power.
But the moment that stayed with him did not happen in Washington, D.C.
It happened in a grocery store in suburban Houston.
After visiting NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Yeltsin and his entourage made an unscheduled stop at a Randalls supermarket. The visit lasted only about 20 minutes, but it left a deep impression.
He saw the meat counter. The produce. The frozen foods. The endless shelves. The choices. The sheer abundance of ordinary American life.
This was no Potemkin village. It wasn’t a special store for party officials or a privileged elite. It wasn’t a dog-and-pony show for foreign visitors.
It was a supermarket where regular Americans bought their milk, bread, beef, and cereal.
One of Yeltsin’s aides later said that the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed inside him after that visit.
And in hindsight, that grocery-store visit looks like one small scene in a much larger collapse.
Two months later, the Berlin Wall finally came down.
Not long after that, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned, and the Soviet hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.
The World Gets Another Look at America
For decades, some of the smartest people in the world believed the Soviet Union might catch America. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson even projected that the USSR could reach economic parity with the United States by the late 1980s or 1990s.
The experts had their models. All Yeltsin needed was the grocery store.
Fast forward to today, and something similar is happening.
With the World Cup bringing fans from all over the world to the United States, social media is filling up with videos of foreign visitors having their own “Yeltsin moments.”
Only this time, it’s European soccer fans walking into a Buc-ees and trying to wrap their heads around a gas station with 100 pumps, spotless bathrooms, barbecue sandwiches, and acres of snacks.
It is visitors wandering through Bass Pro Shops and realizing that what Americans call a “store” can include boats, aquariums, waterfalls, hunting gear, and enough outdoor equipment to outfit a small army.
It is people posting videos about Chick-fil-A sandwiches served by polite young workers. It is American suburbs filled with houses that look enormous compared to what many people are used to overseas.
Some of this is funny. Some of it is culture shock. But there is a serious point underneath it.
A lot of these visitors were sold a very different story about America. They were told this country is broken, angry, poor, dangerous, and falling apart. Then they get here, visit our restaurants, walk through our stores, drive through our suburbs, and see the truth with their own eyes.
America is not perfect. Far from it. We have plenty of things to fix.
But the story many people have been told about America is a lie. Sadly, a lot of Americans have bought it, too. They are told every day that their neighbors hate them, that the country is hopelessly divided, and that the American Dream is dead.
I don’t believe that for one second.
We are not as divided as the media makes us seem. And we are not as weak as our critics want us to believe.
The American Investor’s Advantage
America’s everyday abundance still shocks people who did not grow up with it because that abundance is not an accident. It is the result of a system that has spent 250 years rewarding risk-taking, competition, innovation, capital formation, and entrepreneurship.
That’s why I love this country. And it’s why I love being an American investor.
We do not just get to live inside this system. We get to own pieces of it.
The United States is home to roughly 4% of the world’s population, yet we account for more than 26% of global GDP. Even more impressive, America represents about 43% of the world’s total stock market value.
We have the deepest, most dynamic, and most valuable stock market on Earth.
Our companies are building the next generation of microchips, data centers, power systems, software, medical breakthroughs, defense technology, robotics, logistics networks, and financial platforms.
You don’t just get to watch the American growth machine from the sidelines, folks. You can own a stake in it.
And over the long span of U.S. history, that has been one of the smartest things you could do.
Yes, there have been scary periods: wars, recessions, inflation, bear markets, banking crises, terror attacks, and pandemics. Every generation gets its own reason to think the American growth story is finished.
But again and again, America adapts, recovers, and moves higher.
That is why, over the long run, you buy the dips in America. Period.
When the United States’ best companies get knocked down by fear, headlines, or temporary profit-taking, history says those moments can create some of the best buying opportunities you will ever see.
Don’t Let the Bears Fool You
Take the recent volatility in AI-related stocks, for example.
The usual bears were back on television. People like famed British investor Jeremy Grantham were claiming that this is “the most expensive market in history,” warning of a 70% collapse.
Which is just nonsense.
A lot of this negative commentary is emanating from Europe before our American media parrots it. And I don’t think that is a coincidence… especially when it comes to AI.
The reality is Europe has fallen behind in the AI race. The United States has not.
Some of the loudest critics sound less like objective analysts and more like people who are envious of America’s lead. So, instead of celebrating the boom, they complain about it.
But the numbers tell the real story.
The AI boom is not just hype. S&P 500 earnings for the first quarter of 2026 were up nearly 28% year-over-year. FactSet now estimates earnings will grow 23% in the second quarter – and 24% for the full year.
Analysts routinely underestimate earnings, so the real number will likely be even higher. That is stunning, folks.
And the AI buildout behind much of this boom is enormous. The four largest hyperscalers alone are expected to spend about $725 billion on AI infrastructure this year.
That is showing up in real orders, real backlogs and real revenue.
Vertiv Holdings Co. (VRT), which provides power and cooling systems for data centers, reportedly has a backlog north of $15 billion. GE Vernova Inc.’s (GEV) gas turbine backlog reached 100 gigawatts in the first quarter. Oracle Corp. (ORCL) has remaining performance obligations of around $638 billion on its books.
By the time it’s all said and done, Goldman Sachs thinks total spending on AI will reach $7.6 trillion between 2026 and 2031.
That is why I continue to believe the best AI and data center infrastructure stocks are screaming buys on meaningful dips.
The center of this boom is not Europe. It is not China. It is not some command-and-control economy where everyday people aren’t allowed to participate.
It is America.
So, as we head into this Fourth of July weekend, I want you to enjoy America’s 250th birthday celebration. Enjoy the fireworks. Enjoy the cookouts. Enjoy the fact that people from all over the world are coming here and seeing what too many Americans have forgotten.
The U.S. is an economic oasis. And the best way to celebrate America’s 250th birthday isn’t just to watch the fireworks. It’s to own a piece of what makes this country worth celebrating
Find the Next Wave of AI Winners
Right now, the AI boom is creating one of the biggest opportunities we are likely to see in our lifetimes. That is why I want to help you find the right AI stocks now.
I am not talking about the obvious names everyone already hears about on CNBC or sees in every AI-generated list. I am talking about the next wave of AI winners – the companies quietly supplying the chips, memory, cooling, power, storage, software, and infrastructure that make artificial intelligence possible.
That is exactly what my stock-selection system is designed to do.
For 47 years, I have studied the numbers that matter most: sales growth, earnings growth, analyst revisions, and institutional buying pressure. My system helps me track where the real money is moving before most investors have even heard the names.
In my latest special briefing, I reveal a group of AI-related stocks that I believe could be positioned to surge 100% or more over the next six to 12 months. I will also give you the ticker symbol of my No. 1 stock to buy now – free.
Sincerely,
Louis Navellier
Senior Analyst, InvestorPlace
P.S. Louis has been finding market-beating stocks for nearly five decades, through bull markets, bear markets, and everything in between. If his track record tells us anything, it’s that the moments most investors spend worrying are often the moments worth buying. If you’d like to see which AI stocks Louis is most excited about right now — including his No. 1 pick, named free — his latest briefing is available here. Happy Fourth.
The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owns the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below:
GE Vernova Inc. (GEV) and Vertiv Holding Co. (VRT)
