Any cushion from commodity prices in H1: While contemplating what could be the fresh news that could propel the AUD in 2016 relative to 2015, we spotted out the outlook for commodity prices as the key differentiator in the year ahead.

Australia's terms of trade have plunged almost 30% since Q3 of 2011 that stands-in as a forceful pull on the currency and nominal GDP in recent years.

However, for 2016, we do not have a lot of shape in our forecast profile for the terms of trade, majorly due to Australia's major commodity prices as mostly range bound in the year ahead.

We, at FxWirePro, are projecting the trade terms to decline indeed by 3.5% from Q3 of 15 through to Q1 of 16, and then for the same to rise 4.1% from Q2 of 16 until Q4 of 16. This means that commodity prices will be more of a neutral for the AUD, relative to their influence in years past.

• Monetary policy: Other factors which usually drive movement in AUD/USD are expected to be largely similar to 2015 - there should be further compression in short rate spreads (albeit driven by Fed tightening rather than RBA easing).
   
• Chinese slowdown: In addition to that, the ongoing slowdown in the Chinese economy is expected to continue, with growth likely to converge towards the mid 6s in the year ahead.
  
  However, these dynamics are broadly similar to those which have prevailed in recent years, so don't add much new to the discussion around the outlook for AUD/USD.
  
  Hence, to conclude with the driving forces of this currency pair,
   
• We reckon that the RBA is done with its easing cycle
   
• The large majority of the decline in commodity prices behind us
   
• The slowing in Chinese growth ongoing but modest in magnitude, we expect the currency to mark its cyclical trough in 2016.