Those which are often referred as smart money also use technical analysis, it is just that they are better than the majority at using that skill, whether this is because their abilities are superior or because they are so powerful they can influence the market by themselves as it is the case of the whales, however make no mistake, as long as the market is big enough and it is not heavily manipulated then technical analysis will work on it, however this is not magic and a margin of error will always exist and your predictions could always go wrong from time to time.