Are shipping stocks a good buy?

It's seems that for the past few months I have been watching shipping stocks slide with seemingly no end in sight. I've watched PRGN, DRYS, DSX, GNK and SB all continue to slide. Considering the majority of them are all trading with a P/E of >9, some of them look really cheap. But it seems that they keep getting cheaper, and cheaper. It's a hard trick to catch a falling knife.

Which brings me to to SSW. SSW offers probably the safest protection in the shipping industry. It has managed to avoid the profit decreases the others have felt because it locks up contracts for its ships early. It pays a nice dividend of 4.5% and has a relatively low beta average of .92. The company has consistently grown sales for the past 4 quarters, at a time when many shipping stocks were seeing decreasing profits. Expect SSW to outperform the greater maritime shipping market in the near future.