A number of Wall Street strategists are predicting the S&P 500 (^GSPC) will be meaningfully higher by the end of 2024. Thornburg Co-Head of Investments Jeff Klingelhofer isn't one of them. Klingelhofer tells Yahoo Finance Live that he thinks stocks will end 2024 "flat to down a little bit."

Klingelhofer believes that consumer resiliency and corporate spending is starting to slow and that, as a result, he would be "surprised if we've outright avoided a recession in 2024. I do expect a relatively mild one."

So where should you look to see signs of a recession coming? Watch the video above to find out.

Click here to watch the full interview on the Yahoo Finance YouTube page or you can watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live here.

Editor's note: This article was written by Stephanie Mikulich.

Video Transcript

JOSH LIPTON: Meanwhile, stocks kicking off the week to the upside, with tech stocks leading the way on Wall Street. Joining us now is Jeff Klingelhoefer, Thornburg Investment Management Co-Head of Investments. Jeff, always good to see you. Let me get your take on this market, Jeff. Because we started off the year kind of bumpy here. And obviously, listen, a lot of bulls were saying after that Q4 rip, Jeff, they expected a pause, a breather. I'm interested, Jeff, where do you think we head from here? If we could spin forward in December, are we higher, lower, about the same? What do you think?

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JEFF KLINGELHOFER: Overall, I've said for a while, I think the big question on everyone's mind is, is recession outright canceled or is recession just delayed? I'm firmly in the camp that what we've seen leading into 2023 and now playing through all the way to 2024 is absolutely a more resilient and strong consumer backdrop than we would have expected. But there's important caveats to that. We're also seeing all sorts of data that does point to that slowdown of the consumer, the slowdown of the corporation, right?

That overall spending levels are coming down, financing conditions remain tight, and I think that puts me firmly into the camp that, if I look forward all the way to the end of the year, I would be surprised if we've outright avoided a recession in 2024. I do expect a relatively mild one, but I think stocks change flat-- to end the year flat to down a little bit, would be my guess.

- OK, so Jeff, where can we start to see evidence of that soft recession that you're talking about? Because if you look at a lot of the economic data, so far, so good. So where can I anticipate that and get a little clue as to when that might start to kick off?