SECURITIES

Nasdaq Has New President: Alex. Brown & Sons Inc. investment banker Alfred R. Berkeley III, 51, was unanimously selected by the board of the nation’s second-largest stock market to lead in a turbulent period. Berkeley, who specializes in high-tech companies, said he plans to concentrate on how new technologies can give individual investors better information and higher-quality trades. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department are conducting investigations into charges that Nasdaq dealers engaged in a form of price-fixing that increased trading costs for individual investors. Major Nasdaq dealers deny the allegations. Berkeley was elected after a search that identified 130 potential candidates and five finalists, Nasdaq said. Berkeley, a managing director in Alex. Brown’s corporate finance department, was one of the first securities analysts to recognize the importance of the emerging software industry, Nasdaq said.