Steidlmayer on Markets: Trading with Market Profile

If you’ve ever wondered how professional traders gain insight into real-time market dynamics, Steidlmayer on Markets holds the answer. In this pioneering book, former CBOT floor trader J. Peter Steidlmayer introduces the revolutionary Market Profile® method—a unique approach to reading market structure, identifying value areas, and trading with confidence in both responsive and initiating markets.

Instead of relying on lagging indicators or predictive guesswork, Steidlmayer teaches traders how to interpret the present tense of the market using the principles of price, time, and volume. You’ll learn how to recognize auction behavior, spot value shifts, and classify trading days to make data-driven decisions with a true edge.

This book is more than a technical manual—it’s a professional trading philosophy grounded in logic, discipline, and adaptability. With rich narrative and lessons from his early years on the trading floor, Steidlmayer shows how traders must evolve, adapt to volatility, and become intuitive information processors in an ever-changing market.

What You’ll Learn

• How to use Market Profile to analyze price/time/volume relationships
• The difference between responsive and initiating activity
• How to classify trading days and align your strategy accordingly
• The theory of Steidlmayer Distributions vs. normal bell curves
• How to interpret volume profiles and Liquidity Data Bank (LDB) releases
• Building a sound trading background based on structure and observation

Key Benefits

• Ideal for futures and intraday traders needing real-time edge
• Teaches how to read market activity naturally, not mechanically
• Based on decades of professional floor trading experience
• Introduces objective tools like Market Profile and LDB
• Encourages adaptability in volatile and evolving markets

Who This Book Is For

• Intermediate to advanced futures and index traders
• Traders looking to understand market behavior beyond indicators
• Professionals interested in volume, order flow, and market logic
• Students of auction market theory and real-time trading models
• Readers of Dalton’s Mind Over Markets and similar works

Table of Contents (Highlights)

• Building a Trading Background
• Understanding Responsive vs. Initiating Markets
• The Birth of Market Profile
• Volume and the Steidlmayer Distribution
• Interpreting the Liquidity Data Bank (LDB)
• Reading Market Activity in Real Time
• Trade Preparation, Execution, and Monitoring
• Theory of the Market and Natural Information Flow
• The Profile of a Successful Trader