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J. Peter Steidlmayer

J. Peter Steidlmayer (b. 1938): CBOT trader and creator of Market Profile, a TPO representation of time spent at each price; volume data belongs to a separate layer.

Cite this entry

This reference cites the Cyclepedia entry. The documents it draws on are listed in the entry’s sources.

On this page

Markets and Market Logic (1986): the market is an auction that exists for one purpose only — to facilitate trade by searching for the price where activity is maximised.

Source: J. Peter Steidlmayer and Kevin Koy, Markets and Market Logic (1986), chs. 1–2, 6, 9–10 — primary source for auction, price/value, TPOs and Market Profile. For the graphic reading: Chicago Board of Trade, CBOT Market Profile®, Part I: Reading the Market Profile Graphic (1996), pp. 1–48. The biographical perimeter is contextual: details not attested in the local PDFs remain referenced and are tracked in raw/sources/steidlmayer/links-web.md.
Period b. 1938
Where Chicago Board of Trade (member from 1963, later on the board)
Lens Volumetric — auction theory
Key work Market Profile (with the CBOT, 1984–85); Markets and Market Logic (1986)

Master path

Study J. Peter Steidlmayer in a clear order

Begin with the essential idea, move to the procedure, and finish with what can invalidate the reading.

  1. Start here Steidlmayer tradition introduction J. Peter Steidlmayer and Market Profile: the market as a continuous auction that separates price (where it trades) from value (where it accepts).
  2. Understand the model Market Profile Auction representation by price and time bracket through TPOs. It is distinct from Volume Profile: it counts time-price opportunities, not quantity traded.
  3. Learn the procedure Trading strategy — Market Logic Steidlmayer (MML ch. 14): building a strategy that neutralises human frailties — weighting trades, visualising scenarios and operating within capacity.
  4. Testing and limits Soybean futures (1991) Condensed CBOT Part V case: three timeframes, failed test at 618, control price ~560 commands — long 16/9, short 19/9, fade at intermediate control 587.

Who he is

Portrait — J. Peter Steidlmayer

The biographical profile available to Cyclepedia presents him as a CBOT trader and connects his work to the distinction between price and value. This page separates that context from what the works attest directly: in the 1980s Steidlmayer developed and published the Market Profile with the exchange, not an indicator but a way of organising data—price on the vertical and time as TPO letters. Volume, when available through the Liquidity Data Bank or later tools, is a separate measure and does not coincide with the TPO count.

Contribution

  • Auction Market Theory — the market as a continuous two-way auction: it searches for the price that facilitates trade, and moves when it stops finding it. Balance and imbalance become the fundamental states to recognise.
  • The Market Profile — the profile built from TPOs: POC and Value Area depend on the stated metric (TPO count in the classic profile; volume in modern volumetric profiles), together with tails, Initial Balance and range development.
  • Price ≠ value — price is the auction's advertising; value is where activity concentrates: trading the difference between the two is the entire programme of the volumetric school.
  • Later developments — value-area and POC readings were adopted by modern tools and practices. Volume Profile uses volume rather than TPO count; order-flow tools such as CVD are later developments and should not be attributed directly to Steidlmayer.

What today's students learn from him

  1. To always ask what state the market is in: balance (trade the return to value) or imbalance (follow the search for new value)?
  2. That time is data, not just an axis: how long the market dwells at a price says how accepted that price is.
  3. Part of the vocabulary used in contemporary volume analysis — POC, value area, tails and rotations — was disseminated through this tradition. Studying the original definitions helps separate TPOs, volume and later adaptations.

Sources

  • J. Peter Steidlmayer and Kevin Koy, Markets and Market Logic, 1986 — primary source for auction, price/value and profile logic; local PDF raw/sources/steidlmayer/files/Markets-and-Market-Logic-1986.pdf, with checks in the MML study sheets for chs. 1–2, 6, 9–10.
  • Chicago Board of Trade, CBOT Market Profile®, Part I: Reading the Market Profile Graphic, 1996, pp. 1–48 — primary source for TPOs, graphic structure and CBOT terminology; local PDF raw/sources/steidlmayer/files/CBOT-Market-Profile-EN.pdf.
  • James F. Dalton, Eric T. Jones and Robert B. Dalton, Mind Over Markets, 1990 — later teaching interpretation, not a source for the biographical origin or the method.
  • Steidlmayer web catalogue, verified 2026-07-11 — biographical context and external cross-checks in raw/sources/steidlmayer/links-web.md; it does not replace the primary works.
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