What feature of preferred stock protects an investor from missing dividend payments while ensuring unpaid dividends are paid before common stock dividends?

Cumulative preferred stock includes a feature that protects investors by ensuring that if a company misses a dividend payment, those unpaid dividends accumulate and must be paid before any dividends are distributed to common stockholders. This means that if the company faces financial difficulties and cannot pay dividends in a given year, the missing dividends do not disappear; instead, they are carried over, and the company must eventually pay those owed amounts to preferred stockholders when it is able to do so.

This characteristic offers a level of security and reliability for investors, as it provides a safeguard against potential financial fluctuations that might impede regular dividend payments. Additionally, holders of cumulative preferred stock have a higher claim on assets and earnings than common stockholders, which enhances their investment's safety.

The other features, such as convertible and callable, deal with different aspects of the stock's characteristics—such as the ability to convert the preferred stock into common stock or the ability for the issuing company to buy the stock back—but do not provide the same protection regarding unpaid dividends.