TORONTO (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose, lifting the main stock benchmark to its seventh record this month, as energy companies including EnCana climbed along with oil prices.BCE gained on a report that there may be another bidder for Canada's biggest phone company. The take-over speculation overshadowed a decline in raw-materials shares as lower gold and copper prices sent companies such as Barrick Gold lower.

The Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index gained 75.68, or 0.5 percent, to 14,100.71 in Toronto. The benchmark has risen 9.2 percent this year amid record prices for metals such as nickel and a flurry of take-overs of Canadian companies.

"There's still so much money out there," said David Cockfield, who helps manage $1.1 billion at Leon Frazer & Associates in Toronto. "This market is being powered by money for take-overs. There's rotation out of materials into oils."

Crude oil for June delivery rose $2.31, or 3.7 percent, to $64.86 a barrel in New York on speculation that US gasoline supplies won't be adequate to meet demand this summer because refiners are unexpectedly shutting units.

EnCana, Canada's largest natural-gas producer, added C$1.14 to C$67.89. Suncor Energy, the second-biggest oil-sands miner, gained C$2.67, or 2.9 percent, to C$94.87.

A gauge of energy shares climbed 1.6 percent today, the most among 10 industry groups. It's risen 9.9 percent this year.

BCE gained 79 cents to C$37.88. Cerberus Capital Management LP is preparing a bid for BCE, raising the possibility of a three-way battle, the Globe and Mail said, citing people familiar with the matter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is leading a group that has said it is interested in bidding, and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan has also said it may make an offer.

Telus gained C$1.18 to C$63.47 on lingering speculation Canada's number two phone company may team up with buyout firms to bid for BCE or become a take-over target itself. The company rejected offers to join at least two groups considering take-over bids for BCE, the Globe and Mail reported last month, citing unidentified people.

A measure of phone companies, up 1.1 percent today, has climbed 18 percent since March 28, the day before it emerged that BCE had been approached about a sale by US private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

Proposed take-overs of Canadian companies this year reached a value of $119 billion as of last week, up from $73.1 billion in the same period last year, according to Bloomberg data.