I have a friend who sometimes does that. I laugh at him when he does it. He claims he does it so he can monitor the stock better as it appears in his stock holdings each day, and if his trigger is hit, he can then buy some more, a real amount.
Or, it could be that someone's order had a missing share, such as that 274 person wanted 275 so they had to find another share somewhere.
And, if you use a real broker, many of them do not charge commissions, even on a single share purchase, so there is really no cost to this.
Not everything is manipulation.