Market manipulation happens when no reasonable person would have...

Market manipulation happens when no reasonable person would have performed the same action. There is no benefit in buying or selling 1 share for 40 cents if brokerage is $10. So the only reason for an entity to make that trade is to manipulate the price to deceive others in to thinking it is worth less. Small cap stocks like TMT are usually the target as they are much easier to manipulate than a large cap company. Especially TMT with it's small number of SOI.

It is illegal and there are court cases but it is hard to prove it.