Markets are constantly manipulated. Seems like the wrong questions are being asked here. What's the Nike commercial say?.....
Not saying that it wuld be probable they would get caught, but if they were to be investigated and the reason given was "to push the price of the stock up" well thats manipulation.
Which is totally untraceable. If I decide to dump (if I had this kind of position) 10K of a thin stock as fast as possible, I could simply say I wanted tounload a position. How can they bother me about it? Essentially jay-walking if you will.... I do know that creating a false uptick in ortder to short a stock is illegal b/c you are messing a with a rule.
Plus here is a perfect example: I used to be a NASDAQ market maker. each day at the open and close we would handle customer opening/closing print orders (b/4 supermontage took over) we used to try to gun the stock right b/4 the open up or down and get the opening print far out of whack so we could cover the remaing part as the stock reverted to where it should be. The NASD watched us and our competitors do it everyday, and aloowed us to. If that isnt manipulation,I dont know is...