Momentum expressed as a percentage of its starting point. The simplest normalisation that makes oscillator readings comparable across instruments.
ROC (Rate of Change) takes Momentum's bare subtraction and divides by the starting price, turning the answer into a percentage of where the move began. The conversion sounds trivial, but it is exactly what makes the indicator comparable across instruments of wildly different price levels.
A one-yen move means something very different on USD/JPY than on a 5,000-yen equity. ROC dissolves that difference by reporting both as percentages, putting every market on the same vertical axis — the language of percentage gain and loss that traders already use to think about positions.
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