After the November election, the stock market experienced a Trump bump. The surge in share prices thrilled investors, but some corporate executives had even more reason to celebrate. That’s because rising prices can fuel higher pay even if other corporate results are so-so, which seems to be the case for some companies right now.

Consider Equilar’s rankings of the top 200 highest-paid C.E.O.s, compiled for The New York Times. The company in the middle of the list awarded its C.E.O. $16.9 million, 9 percent more than it did in 2015, even though median revenues increased only 3 percent.

Total shareholder returns were explosive — up 14 percent for the median company. A close look at the numbers suggests that the levitating 2016 stock market was a powerful driver of C.E.O. pay last year, and the bull market seems to have made shareholders less likely to complain about the pay increases executives received. Yet there are serious questions concerning the ties between executive pay and a company’s stock performance.

Corporate compensation committees typically consider stock performance when determining pay. Another study by Equilar, a compensation analysis company in Redwood City, Calif., found that 57.4 percent of all Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index companies used total shareholder return, which includes dividends, as a performance measure for compensation purposes in 2015.