Charles schwab retirement plan

I'm new to investing, and I recently started a Roth IRA with Charles Schwab. In the two months since I began investing, my shares have gone done about 4%. I know when you're investing like this, there's always the potential to lose money. I don't plan to retire until after 2045, so I can be more aggressive, but I guess I didn't plan on losing so much so soon. Is this normal, or do I need to take my money and invest it in another fund? Since I'm not very experienced in this area, I just picked a target retirement fund for after 2040. I guess I just didn't plan on losing so much so soon (it's really not a lot, but when you're young and new to investing it seems like that. I wanted it to grow, not decrease!)

An investment grp such as T Rowe price,Fidelity,Charles Schwab etc investing in conservative investments.

I plan to invest in no load mutual funds (s&p 500 index funds) for wealth accumulation and open up an IRA account for retirement. There's many brokerages I've heard of like Edward Jones, Vanguard, Janus, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, TD Waterhouse/Ameritrade, E*Trade, Sharebuilder, Scottrade, etc. Though I heard ShareBuilder rips people off. I plan to start with between 2K - 2500K each for both my Mutual Fund account and IRA account. Which brokerages are better for both long term and which one is better for both additonal income and growth? Plus I've never invested before though I've gotten alot of advice from people who've been investing for 10 years plus I watch the Suze Orman show and I research when I can but frankly I don't think anything will make sense until I start investing...