Investors should be wary of CEOs that take home excessive paychecks and bonuses.

A new report from MSCI has found that better paid CEOs tend to run worse performing companies, while their underpaid peers achieve significantly better results.

The authors, who studied 429 large U.S. companies over a 10-year period, summarized their findings this way: "Has CEO pay reflected long-term stock performance? In a word, 'no.'"

The report found that average shareholder returns over the decade were 39% higher when a company's CEO was in the bottom 20% of earners compared to a CEO in the top 20% of earners.

The trend even holds across sectors.

Companies where CEOs were paid above the average in their sector "significantly underperformed" companies where chief executives were paid below average, according to the researchers.

Read more on CNN.