the honest to Gawd differences are often so slight as to be ridiculous, although the ECN “tends” to have lower spreads and your overall trading price “tends” to be lower.
There is NO liquidity problems with ECN’s so that is a non-issue — a whole lot of peeps trading forex so there is NO shortage of traders to take your trade.
Market makers are (for the most part – there are some snakes !) no great land sharks waiting to devour newbs, though they will gladly take your money if you make a mistake but they provide charting, a decent trading panel and oftimes news and training for which they take a slightly larger spread than the ECN’s, which covers a lot of what they give you.
brokers using the MT4 platform allow you to “hedge” your trades, as well as a few non-MT4 brokers, but MB (presently) will NOT allow hedging on the same currency, and for me that is a main reason for NOT using them as much as i should. PERHAPS, with the addition of MT4 that situation will change, but right now i pass on MB because of that problem.
IB trading is another well established ECN, although i hear MANY claims of absolutely the worst service dept in the world — if you dont need the service dept, their prices are possibly the lowest around and theyre as solid as (for most of us anyway) the ground youre standing on !
a psychological aspect of dealing with a “broker” vs. an ECN is that you SEE the charges add up with an ECN (which is spread PLUS commission) while the “charges” are built into the “brokers” spread. Psychologically, its often easier to NOT see the costs than to realize you just spent a few thou on commissions.
HOW you react to this is inside you and may or may not upset you — it upsets me, as i simply look upon the spread as the cost of doing business and over a day, i have NO idea of how much ive given to a broker, and i like it that way (as long as theres profit, of course !)
there is an urban legend about the hunting of stops, and i will have to admit that its probably more true than not — stops usually live in a small range near support and resistance, so its easy to overshoot the support area by just enough to grab available buy or sell stops and certainly a lot of stop losses — all brokers are blamed for this, and i get around it by simply not using stop losses and using buy stops well clear of any “silliness”.
If worried at all about “honesty”, ECN’s are definitely more honest, as they earn a commission and dont give a hoot as to how much you may make – in fact, the more the merrier, and “brokers” are accused of working against any decent winners which is a partial maybe – but you have to be doing a good deal of winning to get to that point. (in gambling, trading and real estate, no one loves someone who wins all the time — its human and business nature !
the addition of MT4 to MB trading opens them to more traders who are used to that platform and will increase the liquidity pool greatly — the PRESENT trading panel seems to have been designed exclusively for “scalpers” with its level 2 constantly moving — it almost makes you want to take short term trades since you never get to see all the longer term ones that are not yet showing — its more psychological, but one look at the program, blinking and moving, and youll understand how easy it is to get sucked into overtrading, which is probably what they want you to do since they get paid by commission per trade !
its a wonderful game — you just gotta be in it to win it !
enjoy and trade well
mp
[I][B]Within the great hall at Elfinore stands a wondrous coffer, precisely four cubits square and securely latched against the outside world. Inside that repository, shut away from impertinent eyes, abides many an intriquing trading secret garnered from around the world and over the ages !
As a child, i used to watch from the darkness as the secrets were debated and annotated by the elders. No one there held a single thought of my presence – BUT I KNOW WHERE THEY HID THE KEY !![/B][/I]