Stocks are among the most popular assets to trade in the form of contracts-for-difference, or CFDs for short. This makes it easy to leverage positions far more than with a traditional stock broker, while also making it easier than ever to profit from lower prices by shorting stocks. CFDs based on the stocks of some of the largest companies in the world are offered by nearly all forex & CFD brokers, including most ECN forex brokers.
As is already widely known, most professional traders prefer trading with the ECN model as opposed to the market maker or dealing desk model. This is because the ECN model (as long as it is true ECN) eliminates any potential conflicts of interest between the trader and the broker by not taking the opposite side of the trades.