If you do not want a long and complex answer then most likely you do not want to hear the real answer at all, the markets are not simple, if they were then anyone would earn money and since that is not the case then the answer by definition must be a complex one.

Traders and investors spend hundreds if not thousands of hours refining their techniques and trying to find any edge they can find, the first two options that you give are nothing more but the general views that traders and investors have respectively about the markets, and that is not enough tot become profitable on them.