I believe both are possible if you trade setups and have the discipline to only trade setups.
I started playing the market years ago looking more or less at the fundamentals. After losing a lot of money, I decided that there's no way I could figure out the truth or profit from them. Most analysts are wrong even though they make a living on only a few stocks. Even if you're right about a company, the stock may not move in your way for months or even years.
I then experimented with the technical approach. But it didn't work out too well either. A break-out may fail. A head and shoulders break-down may reverse and the toad could even go on to make a new high. A bullish flag might frustrate me for days and then would break out after I finally give up.
Like most traders, I made lots of trades using intuition. Market seems strong but RIMM isn't participating, so I buy hoping the toad would wake up. Sometimes it does wake up; but sometimes it wakes down. I believe this is why most traders make money one day and lose the next.
It all comes down to odds. Fundamentals, technicals, intuition, often their odds are no better than a coin toss. Besides, as normal men or women, we tend to pick the bad trades more often thus further decreasing the odds. Over the years, I've become more and more convinced that setups are the way to go because they have much better odds, some with almost sure outcomes. The reason? Stocks usually move in the same way under the same circumstances.
Homer: Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try, just wait for setups.
There're different setups occurring every day in the market, bull or bear, dull or active. As a result, you can consistently get a paycheck from the market, every single day. And the setups unfold in hours or even minutes so you never have to subject your money to risk for long.