TOKYO (Reuters) -- The Nikkei finished the morning session down 0.74 percent on Friday, as property firms extended losses on concerns of overheating, wiping out gains made after data showed Japan's economy grew more than expected in the October-December quarter.

Still, shares in Toyota Motor Corp. and other leading exporters found support after the fourth-quarter gross domestic product data showed that exports were recovering and boosting growth.

Government data released before the start of trade showed that Japan's economy grew 1.4 percent quarter-on-quarter in the October-December period, or 5.5 percent on an annualised basis. Economists' forecasts had centered on an annualized expansion of 5.0 percent.

Many investors had already factored in the strong GDP figures, said Toshihiko Matsuno, assistant general manager of investment research at SMBC Friend Securities.

"I think some investors probably had too strong of expectations for the data. The forecast on an annualized basis was for 5 percent growth, but suddenly from the currency market we were hearing expectations of 7 percent growth" he said. The Nikkei was down 119.06 points at 15,924.61, after earlier rising as high as 16,129.94. The broader TOPIX index was down 0.53 percent to 1,622.71 at the midday break.

Property firms such as Mitsubishi Estate Co. Ltd. were among the losers, declining on concern that their stock prices were overheated.

Japan's second-ranked real estate developer fell for the third straight session, giving up 3.9 percent to 2,355 yen.

Mitsubishi Estate now has a price-to-earnings ratio of nearly 62, compared with Toyota's PER of 19.

Toyota rose 1.9 percent to 6,440 yen, after earlier hitting a lifetime high for the fourth time in five sessions.

"If you look at these GDP figures, exports are really strong ... so of course, investors are going for high-techs, autos and machinery stocks," said Tsutomu Yamada, a market analyst at kabu.com Securities Co.

Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Japan's third-largest auto maker, advanced 1.5 percent to 6,930 yen.

Fellow exporter Canon Inc. added 0.6 percent to 7,250 yen.

Elsewhere, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. dropped 5.9 percent to 2,160 yen, extending a 3.2 percent fall from Thursday and becoming the worst performer among the Nikkei 225 issues. Credit Suisse lowered its rating on the stock to "neutral" from "outperform" on Thursday and lowered its target price to 2,200 yen from 2,600 yen, citing a difficult near-term outlook for the drug maker.

Electronics maker Sharp Corp. gained 1.7 percent to 2,050 yen after Merrill Lynch raised its rating on the stock to "buy" from "neutral".

Merrill said in a report on Friday that the share price should be supported by the strengthening of its competitiveness in liquid-crystal display televisions.

Trade volume picked up from the previous session, with 932 million shares changing hands on the Tokyo exchange's first section. But that was still below last week's morning average of 1.17 billion shares.

Decliners outnumbered advancers 1,194 to 404.