Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig nickhost.com. NS
Answer
nickhost.com. 5 NS ns1.91-203-4-59.cprapid.com.
nickhost.com. 5 NS ns2.91-203-4-59.cprapid.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0