There's plenty of talk that some aging unicorns might go public next year, including Palantir, Airbnb and maybe Uber.

But if this market volatility continues into next year, they are either going to have to drop their prices dramatically, or postpone their IPOs.

Simply put, the recent after-market performance of initial public offerings has been terrible. In the last 90 days, IPO after-market returns, which are the returns retail investors get after the first day of trading, have been down an average of 5 percent, according to Renaissance Capital.

Of 55 IPOs in the last three months, about half are below their issue prices, including internet browser Opera (down 38 percent), speaker manufacturer Sonos (down 13 percent), real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield (down 4 percent) and lithium manufacturer Livent (down 4 percent). Recent Chinese IPOs have been a problem as well. Connected device maker Viomi is down 6 percent since going public in September.

Look at some well-known names that have gone public in the last year, like Roku, Spotify or Eventbrite, and many have dropped double digits just this month.