Creating a CNAME record for any of the domain names or subdomains that you've got within a hosting account will enable you to point it to a different domain/subdomain. The forwarded domain address will lose all of its records - A, MX and so forth, and will take the records of the domain name it is being directed to. In this light, you cannot create a CNAME record to direct your domain to a third-party company and retain a functional email service with the first hosting provider. Also, it is essential to know that a CNAME record is always a string of words and never a number as it's often confused with the A record of the Internet domain being forwarded. One of the main uses of a CNAME record is to point a domain name you own through one company to the servers of some other company assuming you have set up an Internet site with the latter. In this way, the site will appear under your own domain name, not under some subdomain provided by the third-party provider.