Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig nic.trade. NS
Answer
nic.trade. 4 NS a.nic.trade.
nic.trade. 4 NS c.nic.trade.
nic.trade. 4 NS b.nic.trade.
nic.trade. 4 NS ns1.dns.nic.trade.
nic.trade. 4 NS ns2.dns.nic.trade.
nic.trade. 4 NS ns3.dns.nic.trade.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
a.nic.trade. 40950 A 37.209.192.10
b.nic.trade. 40950 A 37.209.194.10
c.nic.trade. 40950 A 37.209.196.10
a.nic.trade. 40950 AAAA 2001:dcd:1:0:0:0:0:10
b.nic.trade. 40950 AAAA 2001:dcd:2:0:0:0:0:10
c.nic.trade. 40950 AAAA 2001:dcd:3:0:0:0:0:10
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0