hi all, ive just started out and am bit confused over the different types of brokers ie: whats the difference between an enc, stp and no dealing desk- as they all seam the same to me. also are market makers generally not a good idea?!! any thoughts would be much appreciated. cheers:
ECN – have no dealing desk and truly pass all of your orders on to the open market
STP – is a broker who is not a ECN but claims that they don’t take opposite sides of your trades and that they pass them all on an open market. My understanding is that a precentage of their trades may still stay in house and not hit the open market.
No Dealing Desk – Is the same as STP.
Hope this helps,
Jackie (Coastalfx)
good MM is better than average STP/NDD 
Check these sections by baypips to know more about the brokers. Always look for babypips resources before asking help. That will give you quick results without wasting your time.
How to Choose a Forex Broker - BabyPips.com
Different Types of Brokers | Brokers 101 | Learn Forex Trading
You can separate broker into 2 big category Market maker and ECN.
MM - will hold orders against you, and profit from spread
ECN - will not profit from spread since they pass ur order into interbank, so they change commission instead.
Before, mm is really not good to trade with, they cheat by several means. But due to the fast technology of social and internet this has been solved , not 100% but u cant trade with them.
ECN is not all good, in very violent market you can get filled at hundreds of pips apart from what you pending order (buy stop or sell stop) are.
This is true in theory, but in practice even ECN brokers have dealing desks. They know 90% of all traders lose eventually, so why let someone else take their money if they are already with that broker? That is why they ask questions like how many years have you been trading and such (plus combined with small accounts - usually sign that you are new to trading) they’ll put you on a dealing desk, despite their claim that they use ECN (not saying that there aren’t exceptions to this).
There are almost thousands online trading broker in retail Forex market. So, it is very much difficult to find a right broker, as most of them are found to be scams. For choosing a broker correctly, first of all we have to ensure, the broker is regulated or not. Because only regulated trading broker make sure security of funds with certainly.
I would like to say that before doing our trades with any broker we should check the reputation of that broker so that we can come to know which is the right broker for us and whether or not it is a regulated broker 