SEC said to seek subprime losses at Wall St. firms

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into whether top Wall Street firms are hiding losses from the subprime mortgage crisis, according to a report published Friday.

The Wall Street Journal said regulators are checking the books of brokerage firms to determine whether they are marking down the value of the assets they hold as aggressively as they are the assets held by their customers.

The SEC is expected to check the books of the top five Wall Street firms as well as the securities divisions of major commercial banks, according to the Journal.

Goldman Sachs (Charts, Fortune 500) and Merrill Lynch (Charts, Fortune 500) are among the first companies whose books will be scrutinized, the newspaper said.