An initial public offering (IPO) that is introduced in an unfavorable environment- i.e., in a cold market. A cold market, by definition, is one where the number of IPOs that were introduced in a given month is small, after adjusting for a time trend to account for growth in the broader economy. Cold IPOs, by nature, produce low initial returns. Therefore, cold IPOs are characterized by little interest in IPO shares (undersubscription). More specifically, such IPOs produce returns of 0.8% or less, including negative and zero returns.