刘诗诗_2016;101034208 said:
Ok, market maker is like middle man. They buy from the internal markets? Then using spreads as a ways to sucks your $ and become their profits.
Sort of, but not quite.
The difference between a market-maker and an ECN is the difference between Amazon and eBay.
An ECN - short for "electronic {communications|crossing} network" - lets you post your own bids and offers directly into some central market, much like a regular stock exchange. The thing is, though, that there is no real central order book for retail-sized FX; the main venues (EBS and Reuters Dealing) are institutional-only, so a broker that offers ECN access is at best giving you a partial look at the market. It's sort of like posting a for-sale ad on eBay.
A market-maker is like Amazon - they set the price for whatever you want to buy, whether that's EURUSD or AUDJPY - and you have to deal at their price or not at all.
So there are a couple of important points here. The first one is that market-maker firms earn the spread whenever you trade with them - that's the difference between the mid price, and the bid/offer price that you have to deal at. ECNs let you try to earn the spread for yourself by working bids and offers.
Conversely, market-making firms tend not to charge brokerage, because they earn money off the spread; ECN firms will usually charge a small brokerage fee (but less than you'd typically pay in spread).
If you like the idea of switching to an ECN firm, your best bet is, as always, Interactive Brokers; if you use them, you can either trade cash FX like you're used to, but on an ECN basis; or you can trade the CME's FX futures, which are cheap and hugely liquid.