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The Federal Reserve’s hawks appear to have more influence outside the central bank’s policy meetings than they do inside.

Public comments by three of the Fed’s so-called inflation hawks—the officials who tend to worry more that easy money policies may fuel price increases—triggered bigger market reactions last year than those of their more dovish chairman, Ben Bernanke, according to the latest annual analysis by Macroeconomic Advisers LLC.

Indeed, hawks took seven of the top 10 slots in Macroeconomic Advisers’ ranking of “Who Moved Markets” among Fed officials. The firm measured the movement of the yield on the two–year Treasury note following each official’s public speeches.

But the hawks lost repeatedly at the policy table. The Fed took several aggressive steps in 2010 to ease policy in hopes of spur stronger economic growth and bringing down unemployment. Fed officials completed a second round of bond purchases, dubbed quantitative easing or QE. They stated in August they were likely to keep short-term interest rates extremely low through at least mid-2013. And they said in September they would rejigger the Fed’s securities portfolio. All these steps were aimed at pushing down long-term rates to encourage more spending and investment.

Acting as a “loud minority” the hawks may attract more market attention than they deserve, said Antulio Bomfim, senior managing director at Macroeconomic Advisers.

“The market impact of the hawks way overstates their importance to policy decisions,” he said, noting that a coalition of doves, who worry less about inflation, and moderates appears to be driving recent Fed policy decisions.

However, the hawks did affect interest rates. The cumulative effect of all the Fed chatter raised the two-year Treasury yield by about 40 basis points, Macroeconomic Advisers said. But the impact of the speeches was more than offset by other forms of Fed communications, such as the statements issued after each policy meeting.

The biggest market mover among the Fed’s 17 policymakers in 2010 was James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, according to Macroeconomic Advisers’ analysis. Laurence Meyer, a Fed governor from 1996 to 2002, is a senior adviser to the firm.

Mr. Bullard repeatedly argued against the Fed’s bond-buying programs, moving the two-year Treasury note’s yield by a total of almost 17 basis points with his 19 policy speeches last year. The weight of his words was notable because he didn’t have a vote in 2011 on the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s interest-rate setting body.

The other five top market movers in descending order were the Dallas Fed’s president, Richard Fisher, a hawk who also gave the most speeches of any Fed official last year; the Atlanta Fed’s president Dennis Lockhart, another hawk; Mr. Bernanke, and Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota, another hawk.

Mr. Fisher, Mr. Kocherlakota and Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser all dissented from the Fed’s statement that it was likely to hold rates very low through at least mid-2013. The trio dissented again in September from the decision to recast the securities portfolio in an effort to lower long-term rates.

Though they voted in the minority, Mr. Bullard tied with Mr. Plosser for having the biggest market impact per speech last year, a just less than a full basis point on average, according to Macroeconomic Advisers.

The Fed said after its policy meeting Tuesday that it would likely keep rates very low at least through late 2014.