market folly

Per an amended 13D filed with the SEC, Barry Rosenstein's hedge fund firm JANA Partners has reduced its ownership stake in Outerwall (OUTR) down to 4.9% of the company.  Due to portfolio activity on April 8th, they now own 997,041 shares.

This marks a sizable decrease as they've sold over 2.7 million shares since the end of 2013, with 725,000 of those sales coming since the middle of March.

JANA's filing indicates that they reduced the size of the investment "through regular portfolio management activities.  (JANA) is highly supportive of the recent steps taken by the Issuer's board and management, in particular the Issuer's commitment to improving capital allocation discipline, increasing its return of capital to shareholders, and driving cost efficiencies."

You can view additional recent portfolio activity from JANA here.

Per Google Finance, Outerwall is "formerly Coinstar, Inc., is a provider of automated retail solutions, which offers convenient products and services. the Company's offerings in automated retail include its Redbox business, where consumers can rent or purchase movies and video games from self-service kiosks (Redbox segment), and its Coin business, where consumers can convert their coin to cash or stored value products at self-service coin counting kiosks (Coin segment). Its New Ventures business (New Ventures segment) is focused on identifying, evaluating, building, and developing self-service concepts in the marketplace."