Brent crude LCOc1 was on track for a gain of around 50 percent, following a 35 percent tumble in 2015.
Copper CMCU3 was up around 16 percent in 2016, compared with the previous year's 26 percent plunge, Reuters reported.
In China, an infrastructure and housing boom sparked a months' long rally in materials prices, with iron ore futures surging 170 percent and coking coal more than doubling.
The dollar index .DXY gained about 4 percent this year, or less than half of its 9.3 percent advance in 2015.
MSCI frontier stocks were down about 2 percent, compared with a 7 percent gain for MSCI developed equities. Shanghai A shares, which rose 4.4 percent in 2015, about dropped 18 percent in 2016.