March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Buying 30-year Treasuries is returning more than stocks for the first time since Jimmy Carter was president.

For three decades, owning equities in developed countries earned more than “on-the-run” 30-year government bonds. The advantage reversed after $36 trillion was erased from equity markets since October 2007 amid the first simultaneous recessions in the U.S., Europe and Japan since World War II.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows Treasuries leading. The Ryan Labs Total Return Indices, which track bonds by continually adding the most recently sold security and removing the old one, returned 1,479 percent in 30 years. It beat MSCI’s Gross World index of buying developed market stocks and reinvesting dividends, which added 1,265 percent.

“Over the last 30 years there’s been no risk premium,” said Douglas Cliggott, manager of the $81 million Dover Long/Short Sector Fund, which has beaten 92 percent of its peers this year. “It’s potentially earth shattering because the equity market hasn’t delivered the goods.”

The returns are a reversal from October 2007, the peak for global stocks. The MSCI gauge rose 2,845 percent to a record 17 months ago, more than double the 1,156 percent gain for Treasuries from 1979.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index plunged 38 percent last year, the steepest slide since 1937. Treasuries returned 14 percent for the best annual performance since 1995, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. indexes. Thirty-year Treasuries enjoyed their best year since at least 1988, giving investors a return of 41.2 percent, Merrill’s data show.

(Click here to save a copy of the chart.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Jeff Kearns in New York at jkearns3@bloomberg.net; Dakin Campbell in New York at dcampbell27@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: March 6, 2009 00:01 EST