It may not be pretty in all cases, and in fact it’s gotten downright ugly a few times, but small stocks iBio, Inc. (AMEX: IBIO), Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ: CLSN), and AVANIR Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AVNR) are still staving off big pullbacks and rewarding faithful – and patient – shareholders. Here’s a closer look at what’s going right, and what’s likely to be next.

The good news for Celsion Corporation is, it just managed to test a technical hurdle – falling resistance – with today’s high of $3.42. The bad news is, CLSN doesn’t really have the strongest history in the world with hanging onto big gains. In fact, the bigger the gain, the more apt it is to slide back.

Still, the bulls have tipped their hand, and though we’ve seen retreats from CLSN over the past four months following peaks, each of those lows was higher than the last, and ultimately set up the next breakout effort. Translation? Although due for a slight dip now, Celsion Corporation has done the bulk of the heavy lifting it needed to do. Any stability or uptick around the $3.00-ish area is a good entry spot. Anything above $3.42 is a breakout for this small cap.

As miserable as any loss is for any stock, there’s actually a pretty solid silver lining behind today’s 6% dip from AVANIR Pharmaceuticals. What’s that? AVNR had been in the red by as much as 18%, when it was trading at its $3.00 low. And it’s the difference between there and her that makes AVNR such a compelling long trade now.

You don’t see this kind of rebound from small stocks too often – usually when a stock like this sells off, it just stays at its low, and maybe even sinks more in later sessions.  AVANIR Pharmaceuticals found a bunch of buyers at and above $3.00 though, and the height and depth of the dip followed by the bounce suggest something of a mini-capitulation has been logged. This could be an interesting rebound/contrarian play in front of the next NUEDEXTA sales report, which few expect to be encouraging.

Finally, iBio, Inc. has come alive over the past few weeks, although almost imperceptibly. In fact, you have to look at a weekly chart of IBIO to really see it. It’s there though. We’re on the verge of a bullish MACD cross, and the accumulation levels are starting to exceed distribution pressure.

And what’s driving IBIO upward? Mostly a new concerted effort from the company to improve investor awareness, though the company’s underlying technical is making decisive advance too (like positive results for an H1N1 treatment). It’s all legitimate stuff though, even without any meaningful revenue.

Still, iBio, Inc. is more of a technical speculation than an investment right now, even by small stocks standards. The make or break level is $3.16, where the 100-day and 200-day moving averages have converged. They’ll be slightly lower by the time the stock can hurdle them though.