While Tom Joyce from Knight will briefly bring up the Facebook debacle, Nasdaq will not be there. This will focus on old-fashioned "market structure" issues and less about Nasdaq's botched Facebook offering.

Mr. Joyce, in his written testimony, says: “…the U.S. equity market is the best functioning and the fairest market globally…There has never been a better time to be an investor (large or small) in U.S. equities.” “Remember that during the course of the last few years, with the exception of two notable exceptions, the equity markets have worked flawlessly”.

Everyone seems to agree on this, but here is Direct Edge CEO Bill O'Brien, who will open his testimony with the following words: “Investor confidence in U.S. equity market structure is perhaps at its lowest point since the Great Depression.”

Huh? How to reconcile this? It's tough. It's true: costs are lower than they have ever been for the average investor, but everyone seems to think the system does not inspire confidence.

The Securities and Exchange Commission knows about this: they recently approved two modest proposals to dampen volatility. First, a limit up/limit down rule that will limit trading in individual stocks outside of a specified band, and second, new market-wide circuit breakers. Both rules will not go into effect until Feb. 4, 2013.

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