One of the best things about looking for under-the-radar stocks is that you get to spend time in places where Wall Street is not crowding the exits or rushing through the door.

You are looking at smaller companies, unpopular sectors, and situations that are just messy enough to make most institutions move on to something easier.

That is where I like to work.

A combination that always gets my attention is when a company is buying back its own shares and insiders are buying stock in the open market.

It does not guarantee anything. Companies can make poor capital-allocation decisions. Insiders can buy and still be wrong.

Still, when the people running a business believe the market is undervaluing it enough to put corporate cash and their own personal money to work, it is worth taking a closer look.

The trick is to avoid treating a buyback announcement like a magic spell.

I want to see cash flow, reasonable debt, an honest valuation, and a business with a path to better results.

A buyback makes a good opportunity better.

It does not fix a bad business.

These four companies have all caught my eye for that reason.

BJ’s Restaurants (BJRI)

BJ’s Restaurants is the kind of company that tends to get ignored until the numbers have already improved.

It runs a large casual-dining chain with a wide menu, a strong pizza and beer offering, and a business built around families, groups, and regular customers.

That is not a glamorous business.

It is a hard one.

Restaurants have to deal with labor costs, food prices, rent, customer traffic, and a consumer who can decide to eat at home after looking at a credit-card bill.

The market rarely gives casual dining much patience when sales slow down. That is why the sector can offer opportunity when a company gets its operations moving in the right direction.

BJ’s has been working to improve restaurant-level execution and run the business with more discipline.

The board has also been buying stock.

Director Bradford Richmond made open-market purchases earlier this year and added another 500 shares in September at $61.05 per share. It was not a token purchase, and it followed other buying.

That matters to me.

Directors do not know everything, but they know a lot more about restaurant traffic, margins, operating plans, and the economics of the business than the folks firing off hot takes on social media.

BJRI is a recovery story.

It needs continued improvement in sales, margins, and cash flow. Casual dining is competitive, and a weaker consumer would be a real problem.

The stock still has the kind of setup we want to watch. If the company executes and the market stops treating it as just another struggling restaurant chain, there is room for a nice rerating.

Harley-Davidson (HOG)

Harley-Davidson is one of the great American brands.

It is also a business that has given investors plenty to worry about.

The customer base is aging. Motorcycle demand has been uneven. Dealer inventories and financing costs matter. The core business has had a rough stretch, and investors have treated the stock accordingly.

Nobody should confuse HOG with a clean, easy growth story.

That is exactly what makes it interesting.

Harley is working through a turnaround. Management is focused on cutting costs, improving profitability, stabilizing the core motorcycle business, and returning capital to shareholders.

The company announced a $1 billion stock-repurchase plan through 2026 and had already completed $875 million of repurchases since 2022. It repurchased $347 million of shares in 2025.

More importantly, insiders have been buying.

Chief Executive Officer Artie Starrs bought shares in August, and director Gayle Littleton bought 7,500 shares at $26.38.

I like that setup.

Harley has a brand that still means something, a business that can generate cash when conditions improve, and a stock market value that reflects a lot of pessimism.

The company does not need to return to some imaginary golden age. It just needs to stabilize the business, protect margins, and show that the turnaround is gaining traction.

There are risks here.

Consumer demand can weaken further, and Harley-Davidson Financial Services needs to be watched carefully as credit conditions evolve.

This is not a sleep-well-at-night blue chip.

It is a contrarian value situation with a recognizable brand, a meaningful buyback program, and insiders who appear willing to bet on a better outcome.

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (PEB)

Hotel REITs are not supposed to be easy investments.

They are tied to travel, business activity, group bookings, room rates, debt costs, and the health of the economy.

Every time the market worries about a slowdown, hotel stocks get tossed around like they are headed for the scrap heap.

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust owns upscale hotels in urban and resort markets.

The portfolio gives investors exposure to some very desirable properties, but the market has often valued the shares as if the underlying real estate will never again produce normal returns.

That creates opportunity when management is willing to act.

Pebblebrook repurchased 0.9 million common shares in the first half of 2026.

During the first quarter, the company bought back 0.4 million shares at an average price of $12.11.

Management clearly sees more value in repurchasing Pebblebrook shares than in sitting on cash and hoping the market eventually figures things out on its own.

Chairman and CEO Jon Bortz has backed that view with his own money.

In June, he bought 100,000 shares over five consecutive trading days, spending roughly $1.7 million at prices between $16.84 and $18.18.

Bortz already had a large personal stake in Pebblebrook.

This was not a publicity stunt or a director buying 100 shares to make a headline.

That is an owner acting like an owner.

PEB is still cyclical, and investors need to watch hotel demand, debt costs, and property-level results.

I also want to see the company continue to manage its capital intelligently.

The combination of asset value, share repurchases, and heavy insider buying makes Pebblebrook one of the more compelling value ideas in the lodging REIT space.

U.S. Global Investors (GROW)

GROW is the kind of little company that gets lost in the shuffle.

U.S. Global Investors is a boutique asset manager with exposure to natural resources, gold, emerging markets, and specialized exchange-traded funds.

It has about $1.7 billion of assets under management, a small market capitalization, recurring fee revenue, and a balance sheet that gives it more flexibility than most investors realize.

It is also not a conventional asset-management story.

When gold, natural resources, and specialty strategies are out of favor, assets under management can fall quickly.

Fee revenue follows.

When those markets turn higher and investors come back, the operating leverage can work in the other direction.

That is the nature of the business.

Management has made a habit of buying back shares when the stock is weak.

The company has a long-running repurchase program authorizing up to $5 million of annual buybacks.

During fiscal 2026, GROW repurchased 733,848 Class A shares for about $2 million. It bought 135,987 shares in the June quarter alone for $364,000.

For a company this small, that is meaningful.

GROW also pays a monthly dividend.

Investors are getting cash income while the company reduces the share count.

I like that combination, especially when the business has cash and management buys shares at a valuation that makes sense.

Chief Executive Officer Frank Holmes controls almost all of the company’s voting stock, so outside shareholders have little say in corporate matters.

You need to be comfortable investing alongside a controlling owner.

In this case, I see the appeal.

Holmes has a major stake in the business and every reason to focus on the company’s long-term value.

GROW is thinly traded and exposed to volatile markets.

That is why it is under the radar.

It is also why it has the potential to surprise investors when the asset classes it serves begin to attract capital again.

The Bottom Line

The common thread in BJRI, HOG, PEB, and GROW is simple.

These are not perfect businesses, and none of them is without risk.

They are companies where the people closest to the business are telling us something through their actions.

Management is buying back stock.

Insiders are buying stock.

The valuations are not demanding.

That is not a reason to buy blindly.

It is a reason to do the work.

That is what we do here.

We look for smaller companies with real businesses, real assets, improving fundamentals, and management teams that treat shareholders like partners.

When the market is looking the other way and the people running the company are buying, that is usually a good place to start looking ourselves.