When President Obama delivers his first State of the Union address before Congress Wednesday night, investors will have plenty of reasons to tune in.

Wealth and economics are likely to play a central role in the president s speech. Employment, deficit spending and lending a hand to the middle class will be among the main themes of the address, The New York Times reported, citing an anonymous senior official. Although health care has been atop the president s agenda lately, it will take a backseat to economic issues.

For Obama, the speech represents an opportunity to regain some of the support he enjoyed during his successful campaign. Recent polls suggest that support has eroded as the economy has sputtered.

What investors should be listening for in tonight's address.

Of course, whether the president tells Americans what they want to hear remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: He plans to discuss topics they say they care about. Respondents to a Pew Research Center survey ranked the economy, jobs and terrorism as their top priorities. In light of recent market volatility and broader uncertainty about the recovery, investors should be keyed in for quips that could have consequences for their portfolios in the near and long terms. Here are a few ideas we ll be listening for:

A Pew Research Center poll suggests the economy is a top priority for Americans right now. The question is whether the president will stick to his firm, realist refrains about the difficult path ahead or whether he ll cite progress in an attempt to lift the mood.

Last year, President Obama had no problem discussing the recession in a public forum. He used the word economy 22 times in his February address to Congress, while President Bush used it just six times a year earlier in his State of the Union address. Whether he remains on that message could speak volumes about his confidence in the recovery.

It would be nice if we stopped talking about being imminently close to a depression, says Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management. It would be nice for him to give some message of making progress. There are some rosy data trends worth highlighting: GDP has climbed for two consecutive quarters, and profits are soaring, he says.

On the other hand, shying away from those statistics could indicate a lack of faith in them.

Any mention of stimulus would be sure to make investors' ears perk up. But don t bank on it. Obama didn t mention the word once in last year s congressional address. That s likely because he was working to brand the government s efforts as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the word recovery came up 12 times), says Lowell Baker, the chief language officer and lead political writer for The Word Doctors, an message consulting firm that has worked with politicians.

Now, Obama s audience may want to hear a more explicit message. American people do believe the economy has regained its footing, and they re looking for something more than that, he says. They don t want a stagnant economy. We need something more vibrant in the vision of what the economy will be.

With the unemployment rate stuck in double digits and job growth still a persistent concern, investors will be listening for hints of where the administration expects the next wave of hiring, especially if that group includes players in clean energy. Whether green jobs remain high on the administration s agenda is of utmost importance to the unemployed and to a sector buoyed by White House attention.

It s no secret that there are tensions between Washington and Wall Street. And banks have taken a lot of heat for starting the crisis, taking bailout money and continuing to pay out large bonuses.

However, the president is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. Main Street disapproves of the use of taxpayer money for institutions paying out rock-star bonuses -- but Wall Street is disapproving of Washington s disapproval.

I m going to be watching for a less combative attitude toward Wall Street and business, in his rhetoric and approach, and some sort of inclusiveness of the rest of the country, Paulsen says. And I m going to look for a sense of reining in of the aggressiveness of his approach maybe that s a fancy way of saying a move to the middle, or a slowing down.

Deficit spending affects the value of the dollar. And more Americans are frowning on Washington s tendency to spend money it does not have. More respondents to the Pew poll identified deficit reduction as a top priority than those who named health care, energy, financial regulation or the environment.

As a result, Baker says, any administration plan in the State of the Union address to fix the economy can t include adding more debt and deficit -- those have become four-letter words in the economy.

That means the pressure will be on for other solutions than borrowing and spending. [Obama] has to take it head on, because for the first time in a long time the American people know there has to be a solution, Baker says. Every day the debt grows, and people realize they ll never pay it off in their lifetimes. They ll look back generations from now and ask us why did we have to spend so much?

There are two big reasons for investors in defense and security stocks to hear the president speak about military and defense spending on Wednesday tonight. First, the speech is being delivered barely a month after the attempted attack on a Christmas day flight. And second, polls suggest terrorism remains an important issue for Americans. Terrorism was the third most-cited top priority by respondents to the Pew Center poll.

The attempted attack brought focus to an area that had lulled for a year as attention sat on the economy. The words terror, terrorism or terrorist received three mentions by Obama in his address to Congress last year, after Bush gave them 22 in his 2008 State of the Union address. On the other hand, the word defense was mentioned once last year in Obama s address, but not at all by Bush in 2008.